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THINGS NEW and OLD 



Old and New Testament Studies 

by 

DR. C. I. SCOFIELD 

Editor ''Reference Bible" 
Author of Addresses on Prophecy^ " etc. 



Compiled and edited by 
ARNO C. GAEBELEIN 



PUBLICATION OFFICE "OUR HOPE" 

456 Fourth Avenue 
NEW YORK CITY 






Copyright, 1920, 
By A. C. Gaebelein 



©CI.A630243 



m 12/92/ 



Foreword 

"Things New and Old" is a compilation of Old and New 
Testament Bible Studies covering very interesting historical 
portions of the Old Testament and the Four Gospels. They 
were written by Dr. C. I. Scofield for "Our Hope" eighteen 
years ago under the title "The Heart of the Lesson," being 
explanations of the Sunday School lessons. Inasmuch as 
the International Sunday School lessons are taken periodi- 
cally from the same portions of Scripture the volume is of 
permanent value. 

It is needless to call attention to the sane and spiritual 
expositions of Dr. Scofield, the excellent style and the fine 
illustrations. We are sure this book will be widely used by 
thousands of Sunday School workers, Bible teachers, and 
all believers who love real Bible study. 

But "Things New and Old" contains more than that. It 
contains a number of lectures and addresses delivered by 
Mr. Scofield at the former Sea Cliff Bible Conferences. 
These lectures were stenographically reported and published 
in "Our Hope." In re-publishing them they were carefully 
edited by the writer; their happy style in the form of a 
spoken address has been maintained throughout. The ad- 
dresses on the Holy Spirit especially are of great importance 
today. May the Lord's blessing be upon the publication of 
this volume. 

Arno Clemens Gaebelein 
Editor "Our Hope" 



Contents 

Part I. Old Testament Studies. 

The Suffering Saviour 9 

The Gracious Invitation 11 

The Prince of Peace 14 

Hezekiah's Prayer 15 

Hezekiah Opens the Temple 18 

I'he Kingdom Divided . ., 20 

Jeroboam's Idolatry 22 

Captivity of the Ten Tribes 24 

Asa's Good Reign 27 

Jehoshaphat's Reform 29 

Joash the Boy King 31 

Joash Repairs the Temple , 33 

Isaiah's Message to Judah 35 

Josiah's Good Reign 37 

Josiah and the Book of the Law 39 

Jehoiakim Burns the Word of God 41 

Jeremiah in the Dungeon 44 

Manasseh's Sin and Redemption 46 

Omri and Ahab 48 

God Taking Care of Elijah 51 

Obadiah and Elijah 53 

Elijah on Mount Carmel 56 

Elijah Discouraged 5'9 

Elijah Encouraged 61 

Elijah Taken Up Into Heaven 63 

Israel Reproved 65 

Elisha Succeeds Elijah 67 

The Widow's Oil Increased 70 

Elisha and the Shunamite 73 

Elisha and Naaman 75 

Elisha at Dothan 78 

The Captivity of Judah 80 

The Life Giving Stream 82 

Daniel in Babylon 85 

Daniel and Belshazzar 87 

Daniel in the Lion's Den 89 

Returning from the Captivity 92 

Rebuilding the Temple 94 

Power Through God's Spirit 96 

Esther Pleading for Her People 99 

Ezra's Journey to Jerusalem 102 

Nehemiah's Prayer 104 

Part II. New Testament Studies. 

The Boyhood of Christ m 

The Preaching of John the Baptist 113 

Baptism and Temptation 115 

Rejected at Nazareth 117 

Calling Four Disciples 120 

A Sabbath in Capernaum 122 

5 



6 CONTENTS 

Christ Forgives Sin 124 

Christ and the Sabbath 127 

Hearers and Doers of the Word 129 

He Calms the Storm .....'. 131 

The Death of John the Baptist .!.*.*.!.!.!.!..... 134 

Feeding the Five Thousand 136 

I'he Visit to Tyre and Sidon 138 

Peter Confesseth Christ 141 

The Transfiguration 143 

The Mission of the Seventy 146 

Prayer and Promise 149 

Watchfulness 152 

The Prodigal Son 155 

Christ Teacheth Humility 159 

The Passover 161 

Christ's Trial Before Pilate 164 

Christ Crucified 1 66 

Christ Risen 169 

Christ the Life and Light 172 

The Witness of John the Baptist 174 

His First Disciples 176 

The First Miracle in Cana 1 79 

Nicodemus i8i 

At Jacob's Well 183 

The Second Miracle in Cana 186 

At the Pool of Bethesda 188 

The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes 190 

At the Feast of Tabernacles 192 

The Slavery of Sin 194 

The Healing of the Man Born Blind 197 

The Good Shepherd 199 

I'he Raising of Lazarus 201 

The Supper at Bethany 204 

The Entry Into Jerusalem 206 

Washing the Disciples' Feet 209 

The Vine and the Branches 211 

His Prayer 214 

Before Pilate 217 

The Crucifixion 219 

The Resurrection 222 

The Message of the Risen Christ 225 

The Heavenly Home 228 

Abstinence for the Sake of Others 230 

Part III. Lectures and Addresses. 

The Book of Job 237 

The Song of Solomon 247 

The Church and the Churches 257 

The Personal Relationships of the Holy Spirit 275 

The Work of the Indwelling Spirit 283 

Barabbas' Theory of Atonement 294 

May the Lord Come at any Time ? 297 

The Walk of Faith 301 

Notes Qti Colossians 307 



old Testament Studies 



THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR. 

(Isaiah lii: 13 — liii:i2.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. Christ's ultimate triumph (lii: 13-15). 2. The rejected 
Christ (Hii: 1-3). 3. The suffering substitute (Hii : 4-6). 4. 
The resignation of the sufferer (liii: 7-9). 5. God's victori- 
ous purpose. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

As to the whole meaning of this great chapter there is, of 
course, no controversy. It is the great atonement chapter. It 
is to the prophetic part of the Old Testament what the i6thof 
Leviticus is to the typical part. In the i6th of Leviticus we 
have, so to speak, the anatomy of atonement, in the 52d and 
53d of Isaiah the philosophy of the atonement. As both 
chapters are expressly appropriated in the New Testament to 
Christ (Heb. ix: 7-12; Acts viii: 32-35), it follows that any 
theory of the atonement which claims to be Scriptural must 
gather into itself the teachings of both. Our lesson, however, 
requires us to look at but one of these two great chapters. 

It seems to me that the heart of things here is three-fold. 

I. The sufferings of Christ in atonement were substitu- 
tional, vicarious. He died, not as a piteous spectacle, with 
intent to produce by his agonies a subjective moral influence 
on human hearts, though surely the fact that we, like the 
brutal Roman soldiers, can apathetically "watch him there" 
(Matt, xxvii : 36), is the final proof of our depravity. 

9 



10 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Nor did he die as a martyr, immolated in a great cause. 
He was under no necessity of death so far as human power 
was concerned. Of his hf e he said, "I lay it down of myself, 
no man taketh it from me." When the traitor-led crowd 
came out against him into the garden, he had but to say the 
dread, "I AM," and they "went backward and fell to the 
ground." More than twelve legions of angels were ready 
to deliver him. 

There is but one explanation of the death of Christ which 
satisfies the Scriptures: "He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastise- 
ment of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we 
are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have 
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid 
on him the iniquity of us all." 

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no 
sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
him." 

"Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the 
tree that we, being dead to sins, might be made the right- 
eousness of God in him." 

"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us." 

2. The sufferings of Christ in atonement were not chiefly 
physical, but spiritual. 

His soul was made an oflFering for sin. The soul is the 
seat of the affections, desires, will. Yet in the death of 
Christ we see the sufferings of the only man who ever loved 
God perfectly; whose whole desire was the father's pleas- 
ing and who could say of himself, "Lo, I came to do thy 
will, O God." But his holy soul was made an offering for 
sin. No man could have done that. Inevitably it must be 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES ii 

written, "It pleased the Lord to bruise him ; he hath put him 
to grief." 

The token of this was Christ's desolate cry from the cross : 
''My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Put the 
emphasis hard on the "thou," and the "me." Why, indeed, 
should the only perfectly holy, perfectly obedient Servant 
whom the Father ever had on earth be forsaken of God in 
his utmost need? 

The answer, and there can be but one, is that the Holy 
One was in that dread hour the sinner's substitute. 

3. The sufferings of Christ were germinant. Death pangs, 
indeed, they were also birth pangs. The anguish of his 
death was that we might never "taste" death (though we 
may die), and therefore true death agonies ; but the anguish 
was also the anguish of our new birth. It was the "Travail 
of his soul." The corn of wheat had fallen into the ground 
and was dying that the life of it might pass into countless 
corns of the wheat of God. 



THE GRACIOUS INVITATION. 

(Isaiah Iv: 1-13.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. An invitation to perfect satisfaction (verses i, 2). 2. 
An invitation to prosperity and power (verses 3-5). 3. An 
invitation to pardon (verses 6, 7) . 4. The assurance of the 
Lord (verses 8-11). 5. The promise of peace and joy 
(verses 12, 13). 



12 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

But for the 53d of Isaiah, the 55th could never have been 
written. God can sell wine and milk without money and 
without price because another has paid the price. If God 
forgave sin with no vindication of his holy law, he would be 
an accomplice in the violation of that law. A law command- 
ing what is right, and forbidding what is wrong, with no 
penalty for its violation would be the jest of the criminal, 
and if so it were with the law of God it would be the derision 
of devils. Sin is the most awful fact in the universe. The 
word awful and its synonyms would have no place nor use 
in the vocabularies of men if sin had never been. Sin is 
even a more awful fact than hell, for hell is but a consequent 
and inevitable corollary of sin. Without sin there could be 
no hell, for hell is but eternal sinning. 

It suits the "liberal" churches, apparently, to forget the 
fifty-third of Isaiah, with its suffering Servant of Jehovah, 
and to call the fifty-fifth chapter the "Gospel." No. The 
fifty-fifth of Isaiah is not the Gospel — it is but the Gospel 
invitation. A dinner and an invitation to dinner are two 
different things. 

And this Gospel feast of wine and milk is the costliest 
feast this universe ever saw or ever will see. It cost the 
agonizing death of the Son of God. The Gospel is the glad 
tidings that God himself has undertaken to do, and has done, 
everything needful for the salvation of the greatest of sin- 
ners, and that now God can be just and the justifier of him 
that believeth. 

But the emphasis of this lesson certainly falls on the f ree- 
ness of Gospel salvation. There is absolutely nothing to 
apply. Any "Gospel" that leaves one single atom of salva- 
tion to be wrought out by the sinner is that "other" Gospel 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 13 

upon the preaching of which rests the solemn anathema of 
God (Gal. i : 6-9) . If the true Gospel is preached the hearer 
may indeed reject it, but, also, he may accept it some other 
day. But if the false Gospel is preached he is left with noth- 
ing to accept. He is led astray by a false guide-post. 

'Without money and without price." That is the mark 
of the true message. If there are some pains to be borne 
by the believer to complete his salvation, whether here or in 
purgatory; if there is some work of righteousness which 
rests upon the beHever as part of the redemption price, then 
it is the false Gospel. 

'*Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and 
he that hath no money ; come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, 
buy wine and milk without money and without price." 

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begot- 
ten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." 

"And whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
freely." 

The heart of this lesson lies, I think, in two solemn facts. 

The first is that this very freeness of the Gospel leaves 
every man's salvation wholly in his own power. God has 
done all that is required whether by his holy law or by the 
sinner's extreme need. Both have been considered. If some 
were too great sinners to be reached by the mercy of God, 
or if the Gospel required of man any other act but faith in 
order to his salvation, then, indeed, for many there would be 
excuse. 

And the second part of the matter is that it is an urgent 
affair. No call is made to consider or to promise. "Seek 
the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while 
he is near." 



14 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

(Isaiah ix: 1-7.) 

I. The Analysis. 

1. The Gentile Opportunity (verses i, 2). — In these 
verses there is a mere suggestion, mysterious doubtless to 
the Prophet himself (see i Peter i: 10, 11), in this reference 
to "Galilee of the Gentiles," and in a "great light" to people 
sitting in darkness, of the blessing of the Gentiles anterior 
to the full blessing of Israel. From Matt, iv: 13-16; Rom. 
ix : 30-33 ; xi, we know that the prediction refers to the 
present Gentile age. 

2. The Millennial Blessing of Israel under the Prince of 
Peace, on David's Throne (verses 3-7). — (See below.) 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Here we have the glorious fulfilment in the reign of the 
Prince of Peace, of that old, immutable Davidic covenant. 
Note the order. 

First, there is the obscure prophecy of the first advent of 
Christ and of the present blessing of the Gentiles, which, 
in the New Testament, notably in Matt, iv: 13-16, and in 
Romans ix : 30-33, and Romans xi, is expanded into glorious 
fulness of meaning. It should be remembered that while 
the Old Testament prophets did not see the church (Eph. 
iii: i-io) they did see a period of Gentile blessing which is 
fulfilled as they did not know, but we in the light of a 
fuller revelation do, in the church. 

Secondly, there is a reference to the trials of the remnant 
of Jews in the land just before the setting up of the king- 
dom (Isa. viii : 21, 22; ix: i, 4, 5). Other passages in Isaiah 
and in other of the prophets make clear what taken alone 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 15 

seems an obscure statement. Briefly, the prophetic fore- 
view is that before the setting up of the kingdom at the 
second coming of Christ, a remnant of Jews will return to 
the land. As the day draws near severe persecution falls 
upon them, even the "great tribulation" spoken of by our 
Lord (Matt, xxiv: 21, 22). This culminates in the gather- 
ing of the Gentile powers against Jerusalem (Zech. xiv : i, 
2) and the return of the Lord in glory for the deliverance of 
His people, and the establishment of His Kingdom (Zech. 
xiv: 3, 5; Rev. xix : 19-XX : 4 ; Isa. ix:4, 5). 

Thirdly, we have that wonderful description of the King 
which of itself, and if it stood alone, would establish for- 
ever the full deity and humanity of our Lord. Observe the 
exquisite accuracy of Scripture. The child is born, the 
Son is given. It could not be said of him who ''was in 
the beginning with God, and who was God" that he was 
"born." No. Mary's child was born, and incarnate in 
that child the eternal uncreated Son was "given." 

Fourthly, the divine-human King sits upon the throne of 
David. By no ingenuity can this be explained of the pres- 
ent. He is seated now on the throne of his Father, and is 
coming to sit on his own throne (Rev. iii: 21). 

And the heart of it all is, that despite the unbelief, wick- 
edness and failure of man, God literally fulfills all of his 
covenants. 



HEZEKIAH'S PRAYER. 

(Isaiah xxxviii : 1-8.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The King's Prayer (verses 2, 3). (See Heart.) 2. 
The Lord's answer (verses 4-8). 



i6 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

No wholly consistent lesson can be made of the eight 
verses selected. Never was the context more necessary to 
the right understanding of a passage of Scripture. We shall, 
therefore, consider the whole chapter. 

1. Hezekiah's thoughts about death give with complete- 
ness the Old Testament view. The Old Testament horizon 
was the grave. Not, of course, that the Old Testament saint 
had no intimations of immortality. Abraham laid hold on 
the thought of resurrection when he "Accounted that God 
was able to raise Isaac even from the dead." Job knew 
that though after death worms should destroy his body, yet 
in his flesh he should see God ; and two hundred years after 
Hezekiah's time resurrection was plainly taught throiigh 
Daniel. 

But these were but dim and occasional f oregleams and by 
no means filled the Jewish mind. Long life was the crown- 
ing blessing of the righteous, and grey hairs the crown of 
glory. All the distinctive blessings of the Israelites were 
earthly blessings, and the curses were earthly deprivations 
and sufferings (Deut. xxviii: 1-37). Sheol was the place 
of silence, of cessation. No voice praised God out of a 
grave ; in the coffin no hands worked for God. What might 
be beyond the grave was not revealed. It was little in the 
thoughts of a godly Jew. To live long in the land which 
the Lord his God had given him, and therein to serve and 
glorify Him, was the characteristic thought of such a Jew. 

2. It is, therefore, absurd to quote from the Old Testa- 
ment to prove the state of the righteous dead. All that is 
fully disclosed in the New Testament. It is not that the one 
contradicts the other, but that the later revelation supple- 
ments and completes the older. It is still true that there is 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 17 

no devising nor praising in the grave. Whatever work our 
hands find to do must be done now or not at all. But the 
newer revelation lifts the veil and shows us that only the 
body enters the grave, and that for the righteous to be "ab- 
sent from the body" is to be ''present with the Lord." 

The plan of the life of the New Testament saint, there- 
fore, takes in two worlds, and he knows that the chief sig- 
nificance of this life is its relation to the life beyond the 
grave. Long life is not an unmixed blessing, nor brevity 
of life a calamity. 

3. We are now ready to see the significance of Hezekiah's 
distress and the meaning of his plea: "Remember now, O 
Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth 
and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good 
in thy sight." 

The king does not mean that his heart has been sinless, 
but that it has been "upright," which is the literal meaning 
of the word rendered "perfect." He has been over on God's 
side. He has desired God's will, and so his life, as to its 
whole trend and intent has been good. 

And his point is that, according to the promises made dis- 
tinctively to the Israelitish people, such a life should be long. 
But he was sick unto death, as a prophet of God had just 
told him. It seemed like a failure of the covenant, and his 
prayer, which would be arrogant self-righteousness in a 
Christian under grace, was a true utterance of faith in a 
sincere and godly Jew under the old dispensation. Being 
what he was, why should he die? 

Therefore the abiding heart of this lesson is a truth good 
for all time and in all dispensations, that the life of the 
godly is a life of tested and exercised faith. The promises 
of God are yea and amen, but they do not work automati- 
cally. Back of the promise is the living God, and he will be 



i8 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

inquired of. His promises are eternally good at their face 
value, but they must be presented. 

Apparently, Hezekiah had overlooked that. He was deal- 
ing with the promises of God as many good people now do 
— apart from God Himself. 



HEZEKIAH RE-OPENS THE TEMPLE. 

(2 Chr. xxix: 18-31.) 

I. The Analysis. 

1. Cleansing of the Vessels (verses 18, 19). — The spe- 
cial form of consecration here is the restoration to the 
divine service of that which belonged to Him. 

2. Sacrifice in View of the Sin of Judah (verses 20-24). 
— The law required sacrifices such as these to be oft re- 
peated — we have "one sacrifice for sins forever" (Heb. 
x: 12). 

3. The Praise of a Cleansed and Restored People (verses 
25-28). — This is the order of Psalm li (see below). 

4. The Worship of a Praising People (verses 29, 30.) — 
(See below.) 

5. The Gifts of a People Right with God (verse 31). — 
(See below.) 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

So intimately connected are the parts of this precious 
lesson that they must be considered together. The lesson 
is all heart ; and it is found in the moral order of the return 
to God of His own people who have become backslidden 
through sin. Very much superficial and therefore unsatis- 
fying work is done along this line. Conscious of a loss of 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 19 

communion and so of joy and power, we come to God with 
general and indefinite confessions of coldness and sinfulness, 
but without deep searching of heart and exercise of con- 
science, and we find ourselves soon back on the old ground 
of failure. Here thorough work was done, and the divine 
order of restoration is here illustrated. Let us mark the 
steps. 

1. Cleansing of the vessels. For the Christian this takes 
two forms, (i) The cleansing of the ways of the daily 
walk. This is illustrated by John xiii : 4-10, and is performed 
according to i John i : 9 ; for confession is just bringing the 
defiled feet to the Lord Jesus to be made clean. (2) The 
second form of cleansing is separation from vessels unto 
dishonor according to 2 Tim. ii : 20, 21. This makes us 
"vessels unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's 
use." 

2. The acknowledgment of the efificacy of the "one sacri- 
fice for sins forever" — the restoration of the Cross to its 
right place as the sin offering which has settled forever the 
whole sum of our guilt and demerit before God; and the 
burnt offering in which Jesus Christ "offered Himself with- 
out spot unto God" in our stead and behalf. Faith, dimmed 
by backsliding and sin, once more sees that as all our demerit 
was borne by Christ, so all His glorious merit is accounted to 
us. What inevitably follows is : — 

3. The praise of a cleansed and restored heart, now 
again rejoicing in God through Jesus Christ. In the taber- 
nacle the incense which was burnt on the golden altar was 
kindled by a live coal from the brazen altar where sacrifice 
was offered, so true praise like true worship is set aflame 
by the sacrifice of Christ. Then follows something deeper, 
higher than praise : — 

4. The worship of cleansed, restored, and singing hearts. 



20 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Praise is vocal, expressive, a testimony. David said that 
many should hear his new song. Worship is "in spirit"; 
the bowing of the whole inner self in adoration, wonder 
and love before the Father. Note this order in i Tim. i : 12- 
17. Paul breaks into praise in verse 12, into worship in 
verse 17, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, 
the only wise God, honor and glory forever and ever. 
Amen." 

5. And now the heart, cleansed, restored, filled with the 
new song, and bowed in adoration, is ready for service. 
"Come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings unto 
the house of the Lord." 



THE KINGDOM DIVIDED. 

(i Kings xii: 12-20). 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The folly of the King (verses 12-14) . When will the 
people of God learn that they need divine wisdom as well as 
divine righteousness? Not all the calamities of life come 
from wickedness, for folly, too, brings in its train manifold 
evil. 

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; 

Men crown the knave, and scourge the fool 
That did his will ; but Thou, O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool." 

2. The unfailing purpose of God (verse 15 ; see below). 

3. The kingdom divided (verses 16-20). It should be 
remembered that this division, which still continues though 
all the tribes are in dispersion, is but the disciplinary and 
not the ultimate purpose of God. The whole nation is to 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 21 

be restored to Palestine and reunited as one nation under the 
millennial reign of Christ (Jer. xxiii : 5-8; Ezk. xxxvii : 15- 
28; Hosea iii : 4, 5 ; Luke 1:30-33; Acts xv: 14-17). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The heart of this lesson is the truth, too little regarded 
and too often forgotten, that God holds nations equally 
with individuals to a moral accountability the basis of 
which is righteousness. The only distinction is that per- 
sonal responsibility has eternal consequences because man 
is an immortal being, while nations, which are creatures of 
time, are judged and punished in this present world. 

The general truth that God holds nations and their rulers 
to a moral accountability based on righteousness has both 
general and particular illustrations in Scripture. Nebu- 
chadnezzar, the ruler of the first universal Gentile world 
power (Dan. ii : 37, 38), was taught that his authority was 
due to the permissive will of a God whom he had neither 
known nor worshipped (Dan. iv: 34, 35) ; and well indeed 
would it have been for his successors in the Gentile world 
dominion, which began with him and still continues, had 
they remembered Nebuchadnezzar's lesson. Forgetting it, 
they have unconsciously submitted to the usurpation of Sa- 
tan, who is now the unseen prince of this world (John 
xiv:3o; Matt, iv: 8, 9; Eph. vi: 12, R. V.). 

For this, and the misgovernment, bloodshed and cruelty 
that have resulted from it, the nations of the earth are to be 
judged at the second coming of Christ (Matt, xxv: 31-45). 

It is interesting to note that the nations as such (the judg- 
ment of Matt, xxv is not to be confounded with the last 
judgment of Rev. xx:ii-i5, which is 1,000 years later) 
are subjected to a great final test just before the return of 
the Lord in glory, and by that test they are judged. A Jew- 



22 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ish remnant will turn to Christ after the departure of the 
church (i Thess. iv: 14-17) and will herald the kingdom 
among all nations for a (final) "witness". These are the 
'"brethren" of Matt, xxv 140-45. A last illustration of the 
principle that God judges the Gentile nations according to 
their treatment of the Jew (Gen. xii: 3; xv: 13, 14; Deut. 
yiyi'.^,'^', Micah iv: 11-13; Joel iii : 6, 8) . 

But Israel, as a nation, stands upon different promises 
and is held to a different responsibility. Chosen to be a 
witness to the unity of God in the midst of polytheism, and 
of the personality of God in the midst of pantheism, the 
point of Israelitish failure is not misgovemment, but idol- 
atry. Traced back through the secondary causes of Hadad's 
rebellion and Jeroboam's capacity, and Rehoboam's folly 
and vanity, the primary cause of the rending of the Hebrew 
commonwealth is distinctly stated to be the introduction 
of idolatry by Solomon (i Kings xi: 6-13). 

But whether in the ancient divisions and captivities of 
Israel, or in the swift coming crash and divine judgment 
of the great Gentile nations, the principle holds — God judges 
and punishes nations equally with persons. 



JEROBOAM'S IDOLATRY. 

(i Kings xii 125-33.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The king's substitute religion (verses 25-31). The 
choice is never between true religion and no religion, but 
between true religion and false religion. Man must have 
something which at least pretends to respond to the soul's 
demand for God, and to the accusings of conscience. Cain 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 23 

had a religion, the heathen have rehgions, and antichrist 
will have a religion. 

2. The king's innovations (verses 31-33). The student 
of Scripture has but to compare the two feasts of Pharaoh, 
charged as they were with great typical and dispensational 
meanings, with Jeroboam's substitutes to see how poor and 
barren are mere human rituals. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Jeroboam is the finest instance in Scripture of an apos- 
tate. Apostasy and heresy are widely different things. 
Heresy is error about truth; apostasy is deliberately for- 
saking truth. Note the marks of Jeroboam's apostasy. 
It began in his unwillingness to be subject to the authority 
of God. For it was God who established the kingdom in 
the family of David (2 Sam. vii : 11-17), and to reject the 
rule of that royal line was to reject the authority of God. 
All apostasy begins in self will, in insubordination to the 
divine ordering of things. The first apostate, Satan, began 
by saying, "I will" (Isa. xiv: 13). The underlying motive 
in the great apostasy into which Christendom is now rushing 
is rebellion against the authority of holy Scripture. And an 
able and energetic apostate easily draws away with him all 
the tribes of those who hate God's way. Satan's "Yea, hath 
God said?" (Gen. iii: i) is speedily followed by "Ye shall 
not surely die." 

But an apostate must have a religion, so only that it be 
not a religion of divine authority. Jeroboam, therefore, 
having set aside God's king, now sets aside God's altar and 
God's priests, and substitutes an altar and a priesthood of 
his own making. Jehovah had appointed Jerusalem as the 
alone place where sacrifices might be offered and the tribe 
of Levi as the priestly tribe, but all that was nothing to 



24 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Jeroboam. The great apostasy from the purity and simplic- 
ity of apostohc Christianity has substituted for the Christian 
priesthood of all believers equally an order of priests or 
"clergymen," who alone have right to preach, to baptize, or 
to administer the Lord's table. Jeroboam knew, also, the 
desire of the natural heart for holy places and religious cer- 
emonial, and provided these things. But, most of all, the 
apostate king showed that satanic craft which marks all 
apostasy by building his new religion so largely out of genu- 
ine Jewish materials. He established his city between Ebal 
and Gerizim, and his temple upon the latter, the mount 
of the blessings (Deut. xi : 29) ; and he made much of 
Penuel, where Jacob had wrestled, and Bethel, where Jacob 
had dreamed. It is a solemn truth that one may call oneself 
a Christian, and build a religious system very largely out of 
Christian things, adopting the Christian standards of moral- 
ity and good works, and yet be an utterly godless apostate. 
For if I reject the absolute authority of God's Word, and 
make a Christ to please myself, I am an idolater, even 
though I call my human conception by His holy name and 
erect a cross upon the summit of my costly church. Only 
he who receives the Christ of God is that God-Man who 
saves through the shedding of His precious blood all who 
simply believe on Him. 



CAPTIVITY OF THE TEN TRIBES. 

(2 Kings xvii: 6-18.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The End of the Northern Kingdom (verses i, 18). — 
It is significant that while a remnant of Judah returned from 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 25 

the Babylonian captivity, the ten tribes have not yet been 
brought back, nor is their whereabouts known. 

2. Jehovah's Indictment of Israel (verses 7-17)- — I'his 
is reducible to general counts, i. Ingratitude, verse 7. All 
their sins were against that Jehovah who had compassion- 
ated their slavery in Egypt and had redeemed them. 2. 
Disobedience, verses 8, 15, 16. They forsook the will of 
God for self will, and the statutes of the heathen. 3. Apos- 
tasy, verses 9-17. They forsook the worship of Jehovah 
for the worship of false gods and idols. 

3. The Lord's Long Suffering (verse 13). — Every 
prophet testified against the sins of Israel, but, also, had 
testified of the willingness of God to forgive, and to heal if 
only they would turn to Him in repentance and obedience. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Inevitable judgment for unforsaken sin — that is the large 
truth of this lesson. Let it be remembered that seven hun- 
dred years of Israelitish history lie between this act of final 
judgment, and the day when, under the warnings of Moses 
as recorded in Deuteronomy, God had brought the people 
into that land. Moses had sounded the faithful warning: 
"If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law 

that are written in this book then the Lord will make 

thy plagues wonderful and the Lord shall scatter thee 

among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto 
the other" (Deut. xxviii : 58-65 ) . 

How little the warning was heeded, how soon the sin 
came, the inspired history bears witness. Then came that 
which had not been foretold — the six hundred years of 
the divine forbearance and long suffering, together with 
ceaseless efforts to win back His people. So far as Moses' 
words went, judgment might have fallen instantly upon the 



26 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

disobedience. What God did not reveal through Moses, 
was the age long interval of forbearance. Just so, in the 
Old Testament prophecies the first and second advents of 
Messiah blend in one horizon, for to the Old Testament 
prophet the day of grace which has lasted now almost 
nineteen centuries was not revealed (Eph. iii:2-io). No 
wonder they "searched diligently," "what manner of time 
the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when he 
testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories 
which should follow" (i Pet. i: lo, ii). 

But "the long suffering of God waited," as in the days of 
Noah, and because "judgment was not speedily executed" 
men ceased to believe in retribution. A parallel only on a 
cosmic instead of limited Palestinian scale is found in our 
own age. Nothing can be at once more simple, direct and 
awful than the testimony of scripture to the dread alterna- 
tive of neglecting or rejecting the offered grace of God. 
The Lamb's book of life or the lake of fire — these are the 
only two possible ultimate destinies. "He that believeth 
on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not 
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
him" (John iii: 36). 

And what we need to see is that the inevitableness of 
eternal separation from God of those who do not believe, de- 
sire or love God, rests not upon 'some arbitrary decree, but 
upon the eternal and indestructible distinctions between 
good and evil, faith and doubt, love and hatred. "He loved 
cursing, so let it be unto him ; he hated blessing, so let it be 
far from him," is God's sorrowful assent to man's deliberate 
choice. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 2.^ 

ASA'S GOOD REIGN. 
(2 Chr. xiv: 1-12.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. Asa's reforms (verses 1-7; see below). 

2. The Secret of Asa's Victory (verses 8-12). Asa's 
beautiful prayer is good for all dispensations, for it deals 
with the great permanent factors of man's need and weak- 
ness and the strength of God. Note that it is not a prayer of 
despair, but the confident petition of a heart that "rests" 
(verse 11) on God. 

11. The Heart of the Lesson. 

As not infrequently happens, we must go outside the 
lesson to find its deepest truth. Our lesson records the 
activities of Asa in the things of God, but a little word 
concerning this king in another book of the Bible gives 
the secret of his power to do the Lord's work : ''Never- 
theless, Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days." 
Reading tjtat we no longer wonder that the idol houses 
came down and walls of defense went up. The real causes 
of things are often hidden from the world. 

When loving hands prepared Martin Luther's body for 
the grave it was found that his knees were calloused from 
his hours of unceasing prayer. The world saw Martin 
Luther nailing the immortal theses to the church door, and 
heard him thundering from pulpit and printing press against 
the iniquities of Rome. The Lord saw on his knees a 
humble man whose ''heart was perfect with the Lord all his 
Hfe." 

And any man, king or peasant, scholar or unlearned, great 
or small, whose heart is perfect with the Lord will be owned 



28 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

and used of the Lord. What, then is it to have a heart per- 
fect with the Lord? It is not to be sinlessly perfect in Hfe, 
nor absolutely flawless in obedience, for Asa was neither. 
Not all of the high places were removed ; and Asa gave the 
Lord's treasure to Ben-hadad (i Kings xv: 14, 18). And 
yet the Word of God expressly says that "Asa's heart was 
perfect with the Lord." 

That heart is perfect with the Lord which, in all sincerity 
of desire and intent, longs to do and permit to be done the 
will of God. Such a man will not be perfect, but he will 
long to be, and will mourn when he is not. He has en- 
throned the will of God as the supreme object of his desire. 
But he lives his life in the presence of three hindering forces. 

First of all his hinderances is himself as he is by nature. 
He is not in the flesh as to standing (Rom. viii: 9), but the 
flesh is in him, and the old self will is a vigilant seeker after 
the throne from which it has been cast down. 

Secondly, the man whose heart is right with God lives his 
life in a vast world-system of which Satan is the veiled 
prince (John xiv:3o) and god (2 Cor. iv:4). It spreads 
before the man of God its kingdom of pleasure ; of profit 
and of power. 

And, finally, such a man is hated of Satan, and the prin- 
cipalities and powers of evil are arrayed against him. 
Doubtless the divine provision for his threefold need is 
ample (Gal. v: 16, 17) ; Eph. vi : 10-13), but doubtless, too, 
the man of God, to his shame and sorrow, before God will 
again and again come short of absolute perfection. But he 
will make no weak excuses for his failures, judging them 
honestly before God, and such a man God will surely use. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 29 

JEHOSHAPHAT'S REFORM. 

(2 Chr. xix: i-ii.) 

I. The Analysis. 

1. The king's sin laid hare (verses 1-3). It is easy to 
forget that our God, all gracious though He be, must ever 
deal in exact righteousness. He can be merciful to us be- 
cause on the cross every demand of His holy government 
has been met. 

2. The fruits of righteousness (verses 4-11). He is 
a lovely illustration of i John iii : 7, "My little children, let 
no man deceive you; he that doeth righteousness is right- 
eous." Doing never makes us righteous, but when by faith 
we have been made righteous (Rom. iii: 21-26; 2 Cor. v: 
21), the fruit of righteousness must follow. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Here is a lesson in the restoration to the divine favor and 
the divine service of a sinning saint. It is worth our while 
to look a little closely at what is before us. 

First of all, are we sure that, apart from the stern re- 
buke of God's seer, we should have noticed that Jehosha- 
phat had sinned? Suppose the record had informed us of 
the fact merely that Jehoshaphat had "joined affinity" with 
Ahab ? "Doubtless it was a wise thing to do." For there is 
a strange tendency to venerate Bible good men unduly. 
The Bible does not, but shows them as they were, men of 
like passions with ourselves (James v: 17), but, as to the 
trend and chief tenor of their lives, devoted heart and soul 
to the Lord. So of the writers of Scripture ; they were fal- 
lible men — Peter dissembled at Antioch, and Paul shaved his 
head at Jerusalem — but they wrote in the words which the 



30 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Holy Spirit taught (i Cor. ii: 3), and so gave us infallible 
Scriptures. 

Jehoshaphat did evil in "joining affinity" with the wicked 
and idolatrous Ahab, but when the Word of God by the 
prophet John came to him he bowed under its authority, 
"prepared his heart to seek the Lord," and then went forth 
in renewed strength to do a great work for God. 

What a lesson of hope is this for a sinning saint ! Surely 
it is a needed word, for there is a tendency to despair, 
if not of restoration to communion, at least of restoration to 
service, in the heart of a child of God who has failed in 
obedience. And he will find in the religious literature of the 
day enough to confirm his fears. A very common and wide- 
spread opinion finds expression in the verses everywhere 
said or sung about a bird with a broken wing who could 
never fly very high again. Out upon such unbiblical bosh ! 
Peter did his very best flying after his wing was broken 
that awful night of his denial. It was he, not John or 
James, who could say to all Israel : ''Ye denied the Holy 
One." 

We are not told what heart searchings before God Je- 
hoshaphat had under the prophet's rebuke. We do not know 
what passed between the Lord and Peter in their first inter- 
view after the resurrection (i Cor. xv: 5; Luke xxiv: 34), 
but we do see the Hebrew king doing valiantly for God in 
his kingdom; and we do see Peter winning souls in Jeru- 
salem and writing of the "precious" things of Christ. 

In one such case, that of David's, we are shown the whole 
method of restoration. When Nathan brought home to 
David the great and awful sin of his life, he uttered the 
fifty-first Psalm. That Psalm is the highway over which 
any sinning servant of God may pass once more into the 
presence of the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Its steps 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 31 

are: Confession, cleansing, restoration of joy and power, 
service, worship, communion (Psa. li; i John i:9). 



JOASH, THE BOY KING. 

(2 Kings xi : 1-16.) 

I. The Analysis. 

1. The Reign of Athaliah (verse i). — The annals of 
human wickedness contain no record more evil than this, 
for Athaliah destroyed her own grandchildren. How brief 
the record, how awful the deed! 

2. God's Promise Cannot Pail (verses 2, 3). — See Heart 
of the Lesson. 

3. The Wise Measures of Jehoiada (verses 4-12). — The 
guidance of God is by His Spirit, and He is the Spirit "of 
power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. i : 7). All 
these attributes are manifest in Jehoiada's actions toward 
Joash. 

4. The Pate of Athaliah (verses 13-16). — It should be 
remembered in reference to all such instances of retribution 
as this in the Old Testament, that they are not massacres 
but executions, in accordance with Gen. ix : 6. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The immutability of God's covenants is, of course, the 
outstanding truth of this lesson. More than a century and 
a half before the birth of Joash, Jehovah had entered into a 
voluntary, unconditional covenant with the great ancestor 
of Joash, King David, by which He pledges Himself to 
give to David an undying posterity, an unending kingdom 
(2 Sam. vii: 7-14). In the 89th Psalm Jehovah confirmed 



32 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

that covenant by an oath. One proviso was made: If 
David's posterity should become disobedient or apostate, 
then Jehovah would "visit their transgression with the rod, 
and their iniquity with stripes" (Psa. Ixxxix : 28-36) ; but 
even here He is careful to add, "My covenant will I not 
break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." 

This covenant becomes the great theme of the prophets. 
Isaiah tells us that Jerusalem will be the capital of the prom- 
ised kingdom, and that the final King, born of a virgin, will 
be "Immanuel," "the mighty God, the everlasting Father, 
the Prince of peace." And, lest this should be interpreted as 
of some so-called "spiritual" and invisible kingdom, he is 
careful to tell us that it shall be "upon the throne of David" 
(Isa. ii:i-3; vii 113-14; ix:6-8). 

Jeremiah takes up the theme : "The days are come, saith 
the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, 
and a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment 
and justice m the earth;" and he adds a detail of the estab- 
Hshment of the kingdom which is never afterwards lacking 
— the promise of the restoration of Israel to their own land 
(Jer. xxiii:3-8; Ezk. xxxvii : 21-25). See, also, Hos. iii : 
4-5; Joel ii:i-7; Luke i 126-33; Acts xv: 14-17). The 
promised chastisement has fallen upon the Davidic family; 
the ultimate Heir has appeared, been rejected, crucified, and 
raised from the dead, and is coming again to sit on the 
throne of His father David. 

So much by way of explanation. Now read the history of 
the kings of Judah, descendants of David, in the light of 
Satan's endeavors to frustrate the covenant. King after 
king wa5 led into disobedience and apostasy ; and now, 
through Athaliah, the Adversary seeks to exterminate the 
royal seed. Well he knew that if that were done he need 
no longer dread the Head-Bruiser of Gen. iii: 15. Almost 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 33 

he succeeds, but Joash was saved. Again, when the final 
Heir appeared Satan seemed to have succeeded, for during 
three days and nights the Son of David lay dead. But God 
had resurrection in reserve. 



JOASH REPAIRS THE TEMPLE. 

(2 Kings xii : 4-15.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Failure of the Priests (verses 4-6). — It appears 
from verses 7 and 8 that the money brought to the temple 
under the varied requirements of the law had been appro- 
priated by the priests, and not expended upon the repairs 
of the temple. 

2. The Temple Repaired (verses 7-15). — This division 
calls for no comment. Jehoiada, with that practical wisdom 
which he manifested in the dethronement and execution of 
Athaliah, and the enthronement of Joash, took measures to 
secure the temple revenues for the repair of the temple. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Every revival in Israel centered itself upon the temple. 
The first thought of a good king, especially in the first flush 
of his faith and gratitude, was for the restoration of the 
honor and authority of Jehovah, of which the temple and its 
rituals were the manifestation. The temple, too, was the 
token of the unity of Israel. In no other place could the 
offerings under the law be brought; nowhere else could 
Jehovah's priests lawfully minister ; nowhere else were the 
ark of the covenant and the shekinah glory. 

It was inevitable, therefore, that a truly spiritual revival 
3 



34 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

should be first of all solicitous for the temple, God's earthly 
abiding place. Any movement, for example, which sought 
only to bring one tribe back from a low to a high state of 
obedience, ignoring the eleven tribes, would have been in- 
finitely below the Spirit's level — even though calling itself 
a revival, it would have been clannish, sectarian, divisive. 
The revival under Elijah may seem to form an exception, 
but really estabHshes the rule, for (i) the temple was in 
the power of Ahab and Jezebel, and, (2) when Elijah re- 
paired the altar of the Lord on Carmel — an old altar ante- 
dating the temple — "he took twelve stones, according to the 
number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob." Of the tribes 
ten were wholly unrepresented, but a prophet of Jehovah 
could not ignore the unity of Israel, of which temple and 
altar were the token. 

And all this is typical, as we learn from Eph. ii : 19-22, of 
the church, which "groweth unto an holy temple in the 

Lord builded together for an habitation of God 

through the spirit." Thank God, that temple can never 
have "breaches" nor fall into ruin (Matt, xvi : 18) ; but the 
greater part of our modern talking and modern working for 
what we are pleased to call revivals, wholly ignores the 
temple. The sense of the unity of the one body is gone, 
together with the yearning for blessing for every member 
of that body — every living stone in that temple. In the mul- 
tiplicity of sects we have lost the vision of the unity. We 
need a renewal of that vision, and with it a yearning for a 
revival of holiness and of power which shall hold in its 
longing not man-made sects, but God-made saints. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 35 

ISAIAH'S MESSAGE TO JUDAH. 

(Isa. i: 1-9, 16-20.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Condition of Jiidah (verses 1-4). — This is a cry- 
out of the heart of God; His children have rebelled; they 
are more brutish than the ox or the ass. 

2. The Failure of Chastisement (verses 1-8). — That 
great charge to Israel, Deut. xxvii-xxix, holds a warning 
that if the people should become disobedient and apostate, 
increasingly severe chastisements should fall upon them in 
the land (Deut. xxix: 22-25); ^^^ that, failing these, the 
people should be cast out of the land (verses 26-28) . Isaiah 
announces the failure of the chastisements to restore Judah ; 
there remains only dispersion. 

3. The Mention of the Remnant (verse 9). — The doc- 
trine of the remnant is one of the most important in Scrip- 
ture. There is always in Israel a remnant, as in the church 
there are always some who are of the Philadelphian spirit 
(Rev. iii:8) and whether in Israel or the church, God's 
fellowship and testimony are always with the remnant. 

4. The Offer of Mercy (verses 16-20). — Before resort- 
ing to the terrible judgment of dispersion God sends tender 
appeals. Even in their depth of iniquity He will save. See 
2 Chron. xxxvi: 15-17. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Neither the disclosure of the heart of God in verses 2 and 
3, nor of the compassion of God in verses 16-20, wonderful 
as these are, can be considered the distinctive truths of this 
lesson, because these two revelations of God are everywhere, 
from Genesis to Revelation. Never do "we- weary of them; 



36 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

never do we get beyond the need of being reminded that 
our sins afflict the Father's heart, nor beyond the need of 
assurance that for the greatest of those sins pardon and 
cleansing may be found in the sacrifice provided by the 
Father's love. 

But in verse i8 something is said concerning our sins 
which is wholly lost sight of in our common way of dealing 
with that text. We read it as if it said : ''Though your sins 
be as scarlet," you "shall be as white as snow ; though they 
be red like crimson" you "shall be as wool" ; but that is not 
what is said. It is the scarlet sins which are to be white; 
the crimson sins which are to be as wool. Is not here 
something which should arrest our attention? Have we 
not here, if only we may come at it, the heart of this lesson? 

But, we ask, how can sin be anything but sin, loathsome, 
guilty, abhorred of God? A thousand times let it be re- 
peated — sin as sin can never be anything else. But the 
divine thought here seems to go back of the act into origins. 
This is our Lord's way in that most searching of all scrip- 
tures — the very point of the two-edged sword — the Sermon 
on the Mount ; the guilt is there in all its unspeakable vile- 
ness — only it is traced back to its origin. 

But the sex instinct is not evil ; it is holy and good. Upon 
it God has built the holiest thing on earth, the family. About 
it cluster the sacredest, sweetest words. Husband, wife, 
father, mother, brother, sister, child, home. And, by as 
much as the instinct is pure and ineffably beautiful, by so 
much is its perversion the most infernal and loathsome of 
all the sins possible to man. 

But suppose the redemptive processes, tracing a hateful 
sin back to its origin the instinct perverted, degraded, fallen, 
propose to preserve the instinct, the foundation of all social 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 37 

order and of all manliness and womanliness, but to free it 
absolutely from evil ? to make it as white as snow ? 

Take, again, the capacity for forming moral judgments. 
That capacity implies the capacity for wrath, for noble in- 
dignation. That capacity inheres in God Himself. But, 
fallen, degraded, perverted and centered on self, wrath 
murders. Suppose God has lodged in the blood of Christ 
and in the power of the Spirit power to preserve wrath, 
but to make it like wool — the wrath of the Lamb ! 

And so with all the primal instincts. And the wonderful 
heart of this lesson is that God in saving us does not de- 
humanize, but rather rehumanizes us. 



JOSIAH'S GOOD REIGN. 

(2 Chron. xxxiv: 1-13.) 
II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The beautiful sequence in verse 3, opens to us the heart 
of this lesson. A young man of sixteen — for maturity comes 
early to kings — Josiah ''began to seek after the God of 
David his father ; and in the twelfth year he began to purge 
Judah and Jerusalem." The result and the cause have the 
inevitability of a law of nature. Whoever, king or peasant, 
begins to seek after God, and keeps it up for years, as Josiah 
did, will begin to do things. God fills the seeking soul with 
Himself, and the God-possessed soul cannot rest in a world 
packed with evil. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work," said Christ. 

Josiah begins right. "In the beginning God," is the sub- 
lime opening sentence of holy writ ; and in the final sifting 



38 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

it will be found that all great work for humanity began, not 
with humanity but with God. 

As the young king went on seeking after the God of 
David his father, and as each discovery in the shoreless 
ocean of the Infinite One's wisdom, love and power stimu- 
lated him to yet closer, deeper seeking, he began to see that 
only God counts, only God matters ; and that the quality of 
sin which makes it horrible and intolerable is that it insults 
and grieves God. 

Josiah may well have pondered a great saying of his an- 
cestor David in that wonderful penitential psalm, the cry of 
a heart broken by the revelation of its own evil; ''against 
Thee, Thee only have I sinned." What ! had he not sinned 
against his good soldier Uriah and against his sister woman 
Bathsheba? Oh, yes — in a secondary sense, but the essence 
of his sin was that in corrupting Bathsheba, and in com- 
passing the murder of Uriah, he had dared to lift his hand 
against a man and a woman whom God had made. 

And in his four years' quest of the God of David he 
would inevitably come to see why idolatry is the first and 
greatest of sins just because it displaces God from the soul 
and usurps His throne in heart and life. 

Our world, like Josiah's Jerusalem, is full of high places 
and altars of Baalim, and there is sore need that one arise 
with power to cast them down and break them in pieces. 
Covetousness is idolatry, and never was Mammon so wor- 
shipped as now, and never did the altars of Baalim in Jeru- 
salem smoke with such sacrifices as are cast on Mammon's 
altars in America. The current revelations tell the awful 
tale. Honor, virtue, happiness, benevolence, love and life 
are the sacrifices freely offered to that Mammon whom Mil- 
ton called, ''The least erected fiend that fell." 

And many friends of humanity perceive this, and there 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 39 

is much casting about for the remedy. Doubtless in Jerusa- 
lem many true lovers of God mourned the all but universal 
apostasy around them, and considered how Judah and Jeru- 
salem might be purged — and all the time a young man in Je- 
rusalem was thinking about God, and seeking God. And 
when God had grown so great to him that all life had sig- 
nificance because of its relation to God, and all human af- 
fairs were of importance because humanity is God's — then 
he saw the high places and the altars of Baalim and smote 
them down. 

The Puritans, despite their curious and grotesque travesty 
of Christianity, had a great conception of God in His holi- 
ness and majesty, and because they were so filled with Him, 
the high places of evil in England went down. 

The great need to-day is to seek after God. 



JOSIAH AND THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 

(2 Chron. xxxiv : 14-28.) 
II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

*'The law is good if a man use it lawfully," and the lawful 
use of the law has a beautiful illustration in this lesson: 
*'And it came to pass when the king had heard the words of 
the law that he rent his clothes" — the oriental gesture of 
despair. That gesture told better than words how convic- 
tion had, through the law, struck through the king's soul. 
It was as if he had said : *lf that is the law of the Lord 
then am I undone, and my kingdom is undone." 

And that is precisely the work of the law. Josiah might 
have expressed himself in the very words of Paul : "By the 
law is the knowledge of sin" ; "I had not known sin, but by 



40 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the law" ; "For I was alive without the law once ; but when 
the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." 

For the law has but one language : 'What things soever 
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law ; that 
every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become 
guilty before God." "For as many as are of the works of 
the law are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is 
every one that continueth 7iot in all things which are written 
in the book of the law to do them" 

Perhaps the most serious and hopeless feature of the 
present condition is that the law has lost its cutting edge. 
And yet the law is the same, and its lawful use is the same. 
It would be more exact to say that the sword of the law is 
sheathed. It is still flourished, and many attempted thrusts 
are made with it, but no garments are rent, no one is guilty 
and undone because of it. 

And the scabbard in which it has been sheathed and made 
harmless is the teaching — a survival in Protestantism of 
Roman theology — that the law is a rule of life, and not, as 
Paul says : "A ministration of death." 

No one is cut down by the law because we are all hoping 
yet to keep it better. But the law never says : "Try again," 
to the sinner; it simply launches its curse; pronounces its 
sentence : "The soul that sinneth it shall die." 

And we honor the law when we accept its righteous sen- 
tence, and turn to God for His mercy through Christ Jesus. 

Nor is it the commandments only which we should read 
or hear with heart-searching and conviction. The Beati- 
tudes afford an illustration of this. We preach sermons in 
praise of the beatitudes ; we expound them, explaining what 
it means to be "poor in spirit," to "mourn," to be "meek," 
and so on. But why do we never say : "Woe is me because 
I am proud in spirit, self-satisfied, self-seeking, and so 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 41 

wholly lacking this nine-fold blessedness ?" In like manner 
we read the thirteenth chapter of ist Corinthians, admir- 
ing it as if it were a mere poem. Or, if we go beyond liter- 
ary admiration we only say : "How beautiful is this love of 
which Paul speaks," and never, or rarely, **Alas ! how un- 
like am I to all this," going away to God in the secret place 
in brokenness of spirit — not because of this or that overt 
sin, so much as that our hearts are cold and hard and proud ? 

When Paul wrote the first letter to the Corinthians the 
effect of its faithful and tender rebukes and exhortations 
showed the work of the word in exercised consciences. 
"What carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of 
yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what 
vehement desire, yea, what zeal." 

There is great need that we should cleanse our ways by 
taking heed thereunto according to His word. 



JEHOIAKIM BURNS THE WORD OF GOD. 

(Jer. xxxvi. 21-32.) 
II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Two thoughts dominate this lesson: the indestructibility 
of the word of God, and the way men seek to destroy it. 
Incidentally, also, the inner reason why men desire to de- 
stroy the word of God is disclosed. In the present instance, 
"the roll of a book" which Jeremiah had dictated to Baruch, 
the scribe, contained "all the words" that Jehovah had 
spoken "against Israel and against Judah, and against all 
the nations" ; and the roll of the words was written in the 
hope of Judah's repentance. "It may be that the house of 
Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them ; 



42 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

that they may return every man from his evil way, that I 
may forgive their iniquity and their sin." 

But Jehoiakim had no mind to accept humbly the rebuke 
of his sins, nor to forsake them. Perhaps he thought that 
by destroying the indictment he might escape the judgment. 

And just there is the reason for all the attempts of men 
in all the ages to destroy the book of God. It testifies 
against the pride and evil of the human heart, and asserts 
the sovereign right of God to the implicit obedience, love 
and worship of all men. 

In no other way is it possible to account for the ceaseless 
enmity which this one book alone of all the books in the 
world has encountered. Why else, should this one book be 
singled out for human hatred ? 

And observe : It is not so much the book itself which 
provokes the hatred of the human heart as the claim which 
it makes to be authoritative. Once concede that it is a 
human production, written along through the ages by a 
people "with a genius for religion" — as other people have a 
genius for art, or for invention — and the Bible, thus de- 
prived of its divine authority, is tolerated. That is the dis- 
tinctive note of present-day assaults upon the Scriptures, 

And, secondly, the lesson discloses the method of the war- 
fare against the Bible — by little and little. **And it came to 
pass that when Judah had written three or four leaves, he 
cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was 
upon the hearth." 

Wholesale denunciations of the Bible are out of fashion. 
On the contrary, the modern Jehoiakim will say beautiful 
things about the Bible. He freely concedes to it the first 
place among the so-called "sacred books" of the nations, 
and affirms that in a greater degree than any of them it has 
"caught true concepts" from God. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 43 

But when this is said, then the penknife work begins. 
We must cut out the bibhcal conception of the being and 
character of God. He is not, the modern Jehoiakim says, 
capable of wrath, nor does he "punish" sin. Sin punishes 
itself. Therefore there is no hell, no eternal punishment. 

We must, too, cut out the whole Bible conception of man 
as having been created upright and innocent — an innocency 
from which the first man fell. Man began as protoplasm or 
as a "primeval germ," and blundered up and is still blunder- 
ing up. 

That makes it necessary to cut out the Bible view of sin. 
Sin is only traces of the lower forms through which man 
has emerged — traces for which "he is no more responsible 
than a puppy is for its tendency to destroy things." 

But, thirdly, the word of God is absolutely indestructible 
When Baruch's roll lay a heap of blackened ashes on Jehoi- 
akim's hearth, the king imagined, no doubt, that the matter 
was ended; but — 

"Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after that 
the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch 
wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying: "Take thee again 
another roll and write in it all the former words that were in 
the first roll." 

No : "The Scripture cannot be broken." "Forever is my 
word settled in the heavens." But the faith of millions in 
that word may be broken, and is being broken by the pen- 
knife work of Jehoiakim's successors. 



44 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

JEREMIAH IN THE DUNGEON. 

(Jer. xxxviii : 1-13.) 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The permitted affliction of the good is evidently the heart 
of things here. In a time of final declension and utter apos- 
tasy Jeremiah stands forth uttering in a blameless life the 
terrible messages of God. No braver, more devoted servant, 
save only Jesus Christ, did Jehovah ever have on this earth. 
And furthermore, the very point of his pleading with king 
and people was the power of God to deliver Judah even yet 
from all the power of Babylon if only Judah would return 
to Jehovah, her covenant God. 

And, now, in the mystery of God's will, the very preacher 
of His power to deliver is not delivered ! "Then took they 
Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the 
son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison 
so Jeremiah sunk in the mire." Why ? 

We must remember that this case does not stand alone. 
Job, the best man of his time, is given over, as to all else 
but his life, into the hand of Satan. The three faithful Jews 
are cast into the burning fiery furnace. Daniel himself must 
go into the den of the lions. John the Baptist loses his head 
at the request of a lewd dancing girl. Stephen is stoned. 
Paul is beaten and imprisoned. All the apostles save John 
die by the executioner. Countless Christian maidens are 
torn by lions and devoured by flames. Why? 

We may not go to the end of this mystery of the permitted 
suffering of the good, but we may go some way in it. 

Think first of the cases illustrated by this instance of 
Jeremiah's — the cases which end in deliverance. In all of 
them three facts are clearly discernible. 

First : The power of God is far more strikingly shown 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 45 

in His deliverance of His servants from the trials into 
which they were permitted to be drawn, than it could have 
been in simply keeping them out of the trial. It was an 
amazing manifestation of the power of God that Shadrach 
and his companions were not hurt by the flames, nor Daniel 
by the lions. Jeremiah, mute and meek in his horrible miry 
pit, was an appeal to whatever of heart and conscience 
Judah had left. 

Secondly: We cannot doubt that for them there was 
great gain. Not always do the narratives show this, but 
they show it often enough to make us sure that suffering, 
unjustly inflicted, meekly borne, is always a process of 
blessing. 

Cleansing and a resultant nearness to God are invariable. 
In the burning, fiery furnace the three men of the captivity 
were seen wallcing, their bonds burnt away, but not even 
their garments hurt, while with them was the ineffable pres- 
ence of "the Fourth." 

Job, good, but too conscious of it, was brought to see 
God, and in the light of that vision to see also and to abhor 
himself. 

Thirdy: The permitted suffering of the Saints often 
turns out to the furtherance of the Gospel, and to their 
greater efficiency. Job, purified, becomes the priest through 
whom his accusing friends are pardoned. Aged John, exiled 
to Patmos, is given the Apocalypse to write. There are. 
mysteries, but we do know 

" 'Tis suffering sublimes the soul, 
So perfect peace may come at last, 
And we shall know God's kind intent 
When these sharp pains are past." 



46 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

But of the undelivered, what shall we say ? To what end 
the murder of John the Baptist, the stoning of Stephen, the 
cruel deaths of the unnumbered martyrs? 

Let us remember that there are two spheres of life to be 
taken into account. When earth's last word is said, eter- 
nity's first word is uttered. Never, until we pass, **To 
where, beyond these voices there is peace," shall we know 
the other side of agony and death of the good ; but this at 
least faith confidently affirms — that everything which seems 
hardest in the permitted suffering of the good, will some 
time be seen to be God's sweetest touch of love. 



MANASSEH'S SIN AND REPENTANCE. 

(2 Chron. xxxiii: 1-13.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. Manasseh's life-record (verses i, 2). 

2. The king's great sin (verses 3-10). 

3. ManasseWs terrible punishment (verse 11). The 
king's repentance and restoration. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The core of the matter in this lesson is in the twelfth 
verse : "And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord 
his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his 
fathers." Two things followed Manasseh's humbling: he 
got an answer to his prayer, and he got really acquainted 
with God. 

Put, as you truly may, into the word affliction all the mean- 
ings of those other words of Scripture, "chastening," "tribu- 
lation," and "purging," and think of these experiences not 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 47 

as the accidents and mere chances of the believer's life, but 
as the sent experiences of the Father's disciplinary dealing, 
every one a deliberate plan ; every one fitted with exquisite 
skill to the effecting of a certain object; every one held 
steadily in the Father's hand with His loving faithful finger 
on the pulse of His child — think of the word affliction that 
way, and you are in the very heart, not alone of this Sunday 
school lesson, but of the deepest mysteries of Christian ex- 
perience. 

Manasseh's great ancestor and covenant head, king David, 
said, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted;" never 
once does he say, "It is good for me that I have been ex- 
alted." David poor, cast out, hunted like a partridge on the 
mountains of Israel was always a humble, hopeful, holy 
David. But David on a throne, rich, idle, overfed, was a 
David ready for any sensuality, any cruelty. 

Why are the good afflicted? That problem is as old as 
Job, and not much has been added to the solution of the 
problem since Job. It is all answered there at last. 

And perhaps the sorest trial of the afflicted is still that to 
him comes Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, 
and Zophar the Naamanite, with their little self-righteous 
theories about the affliction of the good. The affliction itself 
is hard, but it is as a bed of down compared to Eliphaz and 
Bildad and Zophar. But these, too, must be borne. 

Paul calls affliction "tribulation," from the Roman thresh- 
ing implement. And that means more than that it falls like 
the blows of a flail. It means that under the blows chaff gets 
separated from wheat. Paul tells us that the justified man, 
who has peace with God, and stands in God's grace, and re- 
joices in the hope of God's glory, comes under the flail and 
to what end. 

"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also : know- 



48 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ing that tribulation worketh patience ; and patience experi- 
ence; and experience hope." 

Some one has beautifully said that "Tribulation is God's 
way with us, sometimes; and patience is just letting God 
have His way ; and experience is finding out that God's way 
was best." 

Our Lord calls it "purging" ; and He, too, tells us what it 
is good for. "Every branch that bearef|i fruit, he purgeth 
it, that it may bring forth more fruit." And the word means 
both cleansing and pruning. The tendrils reach out after 
forbidden, or at least unwise things, and the Husbandman 
severs the outreaching tendril. But the great autumn clus- 
ters make it well worth while. 

The writer of the Hebrews calls it "chastening," and he, 
too, tells us why the good are afflicted. It is "for our profit 
that we might be partakers of His holiness." And he says 
that though, "No chastening for the present seemeth to be 
joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the 
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exer- 
cised thereby." 

So Manasseh's affliction was his exceeding great blessing. 



OMRI AND AHAB. 

(i Kings xvi: 23-33.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. God's judgment of prosperous evil (verses 23-27; 
see below). 

2. The greater wickedness of Ahab (veises 28-33) » see 
below). 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 49 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

In the first of our lesson the story of Omri, the deepest 
meaning is to be found in the contrast between God's judg- 
ment and man's. The contrast does not so much appear 
from the portion selected as from all that is said in Scrip- 
ture of Omri. And yet enough is here. 

From the human standpoint Omri's reign was brilliant 
and successful. In the judgment of men he was no doubt 
regarded as a constructive statesman. He was, in a sense, 
the Peter the Great of his time. Beginning in Tioga, as 
Peter in Moscow, he built a new capital city as Peter built 
St. Petersburg. Such a man would do other notable things. 
The "rest" of his acts, it appears, were recorded in the 
"chronicles of the kings of Israel," and the record has per- 
ished. We may imagine that a man so strong and aggres- 
sive would fill a large place in that chronicle. 

But all the time a different chronicle was being written in 
heaven. Here it is only said that "he wrought evil in the 
sight of the Lord." What that evil was will appear in the 
great day when the "dead" shall be judged (Rev. xx: ii, 
12). In the days of Noah it was just the same. "There 
were giants in the earth in those days," "mighty men, men 
of renown." They builded, they bought and sold. Then, as 
now, the great "captains of industry" were flattered and 
envied. Never were earth's prospects more fair ; never was 
there less apparent justification for forebodings. But just 
at that very time ''God saw that the wickedness of man was 
great in the earth." Never before have those days been 
more exactly paralleled than just now, and it may be well 
to remember that it is one of the sure signs of the coming of 
the Lord. 

The one fact concerning Ahab upon which Scripture puts 



50 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

most emphasis is the fact of his bad marriage. It was not 
a bad marriage according to the ethics of the world. It was 
good politics for young Ahab to marry the daughter of the 
king who largely controlled his access to the sea. And, be- 
cause Ahab was young and an oriental despot, we may be 
sure that Jezebel was as beautiful in person as she certainly 
was brilliant in mind and determined in character. 

But that woman was Ahab's evil genius, and every wife 
is either the best or the worst element in her husband's life. 
Marriage, an institution divinely established in humanity, is 
precisely that human relationship which Scripture most 
sternly safeguards. Great as is the emphasis which the Bible 
puts upon parenthood, that holy relation is subordinated to 
marriage. "For this cause shall a man leave his father and 
mother, and shall be joined unto his wife." 

Designed by divine love to afford both the highest happi- 
ness and the purest pleasure to humanity, it is, if misused, 
the most awful of life's curses. And no other human rela- 
tionship is more vilely misused. 

The recurring agitations for improved divorce laws are 
folly. No amendment of these could cure or even touch the 
real evil. Not easy divorce, but easy marriage, is the true 
crime. Never until Christians are taught the great and sa- 
cred meanings of marriage, so that the conscience will be- 
come more sensitive, if possible, to wrong marriage than to 
murder itself, will the great evil and sorrow of the social 
life of humanity disappear. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 51 

GOD TAKING CARE OF ELIJAH. 

(i Kings xvii: 1-16.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. Elijah's Faith in a Living God (verse i) . — How much 
modern faith is in a God who once Hved and acted sover- 
eignly, rather than in the Lord God who now Hves and acts 
sovereignly. It took, not more than ordinary faith, but real 
faith, to say to a wicked king : — ''There shall not be" — con- 
fident that it should not be, because back of Elijah was the 
"Lord God of Israel" that "liveth." 

2. God's Resources Unlimited to a Faith Harnessed to 
Obedience (verses 2-16). — Divine guidance as to the "east- 
ward," and "by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan," 
is not to be relegated to a former dispensation, but is to-day 
at the command of the weakest child of God. However, the 
path of obedience has many side-tracks, and a turn to the 
right or to the left may so switch one off the line of guid- 
ance as to impede progress. But of this we may be certain, 
that at God's ''there" is everything needed for our develop- 
ment and welfare. His way, however, is not always along 
a direct route, for we, too, sometimes, "must needs go 
through Samaria." 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

I think we must find the heart of this lesson in a word 
which we may easily pass over unnoticed. It is the word 
"there," in verses 4 and 9 : "I have commanded the ravens 
to feed thee there'' ; "I have commanded a widow woman 
there to sustain thee." 

Suppose EHjah, having such a command, had said : "Of 
course the Lord does not care especially that the brook by 



52 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

which I am to Hve should be the brook Cherith. That would 
be to interpret His word after the manner of the literalists, 
in a hard, mechanical way. A brook is meant, not any par- 
ticular brook, and I know a far pleasanter brookside in my 
own country of Gilead ; I will go there." Does any one im- 
agine that God's ravens, who seem to have been very exact 
literalists, would have gone elsewhere than to Cherith ? 

Or suppose he had chosen another city than Zarephath, or 
another house in Zarephath than that of the widow, would 
he have been on claiming ground in respect of God's prom- 
ise ? Clearly not. 

The thought is that our heavenly Father has, for every 
one of His children, a life plan which of necessity extends 
to the minutest detail. Of necessity, because no act or 
thought in human life is unrelated or detached, but is in- 
timately connected with every other act or thought. There 
were reasons in the divine choice of Cherith and the ravens, 
and of Zarephath and the widow, even though the reasons 
were not disclosed. 

By the brook the prophet himself was disciplined for the 
greater tasks before him. What a lesson in patient obedi- 
ence was his life by that slowly drying stream! Day by 
day the brook shrank in its channel until at last no water 
remained. Most of us would have taken that as a sufficient 
indication of the divine providence, and, like Obadiah, would 
have gone elsewhere looking for a more abundant supply. 
Not so Elijah. Not till the word of command came again, 
did the prophet move. How unlike very many of us ! It 
seems never to occur to us that we may need the discipline 
of constantly diminishing resources. And thousands of 
God's dear children are in straits, and have little token of 
the Father's care, because they have chosen the "there" of 
their lives in self-will and self-pleasing. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 53 

Elijah himself committed that error later in his ministry, 
and for once in the life of that great prophet *'the word of 
the Lord" came to him with an accent of rebuke: "What 
doest thou here, Elijah ?" ( i Kings xix : 9) . It might be the 
beginning of better, larger things to many troubled Chris- 
tians if they would set themselves earnestly to seek the will 
of God as to the "here" and "there" of their lives. 



OBADIAH AND ELIJAH. 

(i Kings xviii: 1-16.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. God's ''Go'' Precedes His ''And I Will" (verses i, 2) . 
— This is seen also in the previous lesson. If God were a 
despot, as some men assert. His Word would be full of 
"go's," with no "and I will." A human monarch launches 
out a good many go's, but instead of and, he offers an or. 
In other words, the laws of the land are all attached to pen- 
alties, not to rewards. The laws of heaven are all attached 
to gracious promises. How much fallacious teaching along 
these lines has implanted in many a heart an unbiblical idea 
of God, our loving heavenly Father. 

2. Secret Discipleship (verses 3-15). 

3. The Lord and His Hosts Elijah's Cohort (verses 15, 
16). — Elijah had no fear for his life, as Obadiah had, for 
unlike the latter, his faith, as in the previous lesson, was in 
a living God with unseen hosts at His command, and the out- 
flow of such a faith is always an upright life, free from the 
fear of men. Oh for more men like Elijah to say in the face 

of danger, — of ridicule — of temptation — "the Lord" 

"before whom I stand." 



54 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

These two prophets of Jehovah in a day of apostasy and 
idolatry in Israel are not only strongly contrasted characters, 
but are representative of two classes of servants of God in 
every age. Both were sincere, both had the prophetic gift. 
But there the similarity ends and contrast begins. 

Obadiah is a type of the Christian minister who sincerely 
loves the Lord, and who, within certain limitations, means 
to be loyal and true. But he cannot break with the world. 
Obadiah held an important office at the court of the vilest 
king who ever disgraced a throne. That court was domi- 
nated by Jezebel, a cruel idolater whose name has become in 
Scripture a symbol of persecution and corruption (Rev. 
ii:2o). In that court the open confession of the name of 
Jehovah was impossible. When Jezebel slew the prophets 
of the Lord (verse 13) it is evident that Obadiah was not 
suspected. On the other hand he evinced the reality of his 
secret discipleship by sheltering and sustaining an hundred 
of his fellow believers. But he could not give up his place 
of favor with its emoluments and influence, and take his 
place openly with God's fearless witnesses against evil in 
high places. A Jewish tradition asserts that when Jezebel 
caused the torture and death of the prophets of Jehovah, 
many who were unknown and unsuspected came forward to 
suffer with their brethren; and Saphir thought these were 
meant in Heb. xi : 35, "not accepting deliverance," when 
Obadiah oflfered to secrete them. Such, then, was Obadiah 
— a man of sincere faith, but a truckling time-server, sup- 
pressing his profound convictions, and having no word of 
rebuke for the shameless idolatry about him. 

What a contrast to all this is Elijah. Into that very court 
where Obadiah was selling his manhood and betraying his 
God through cowardice and ambition, came this stranger 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES H 

from Gilead with his stern message of the divine wrath and 
judgment. How Obadiah must have longed for courage to 
cast off his livery of shame and stand forth at whatever cost, 
as Elijah's co-witness. But he could not — he had sold his 
manhood for place and power. 

What a day, too, of contrast between the religious world- 
ling and the separated servant of God was that which fol- 
lowed this meeting of Obadiah and Elijah, when all Israel 
was gathered to Carmel for the contest between the four 
hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and Jehovah's one fear- 
less witness. 

The "governor" of Ahab's court (verse 3) must have per- 
ceived that the real monarch that day was not the Jezebel- 
ruled Ahab, but the solitary Tishbite. 

Such a contrast recurred in the morning of the Reforma- 
tion between Erasmus and Luther. The satirical scholar 
was as little of a papist as the converted monk, but when 
Luther was delivering his shattering blows upon the citadel 
of the later Jezebel, he in vain summoned to his side the one 
man in all the w^orld who could have helped him most. The 
same contrast recurs when, as to-day, there stand in the 
same age and with like convictions men who dare strike hard 
and straight at the monstrous covetousness which underlies 
every colossal fortune, every crushing trust, and the men 
who stand daily in the presence of the modern Ahabs, know- 
ing well that they have taken the vineyard of many a help- 
less Naboth, but with craven hearts speak smooth things. 

And the peculiar peril of all men of that type is, that they 
salve their consciences with some good deed which their 
position of favor with the world enables them to do. Have 
they not induced Croesus to found an orphanage, or endow 
a Christless college? 



56 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ELIJAH ON MOUNT CARMEL. 

(i Kings xviii : 30-46.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Recognition of Israel's Unity (verses 30-32). 
God has gathered two bodies on this earth, both charged 

with the duty of representing Himself — Israel and the 
church. The first great fact concerning the Deity is unity : 
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord," and the 
point of most grievous failure in both cases is, that divisions 
came in to mar the expression of that unity. The two 
kingdoms in Israel, and the numberless sects in the church 
mark that failure. Elijah here finely illustrates the indi- 
vidual part in a time of division. He took no position which 
ignored the entire unity of the people of God. 

2. The Courage and Composure of True Faith (verses 
33-36). 

So sure was Elijah that the power of his God was suffi- 
cient, that he deliberately heaped difficulty upon difficulty, 
and then, in the quietness of a heart stayed on Jehovah, he 
waited for the time of the evening sacrifice. 

3. The Prayer of Elijah and God's Answer (verses 36- 
39)- 

This prayer is one of the most admirable models of prayer 
to be found in the Bible — ^that treasury of wonderful 
prayers. It is based on God's covenants ; has the exaltation 
of God and the salvation of His people for its object. 

4. The Execution of the False Prophets (verse 40). 

Do not conceive of this scene as the triumph of bigotry. 
The government of Israel was a theocracy, and idolatry was 
the supreme treason against the King. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 57 

5. The Final Test of Faith (verses 41-46). 

The justification of Elijah as God's true prophet was in- 
complete till rain should come again. Israel, however 
temporary the repentance might be, had that day turned 
back to God, and now it was His time to be gracious. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The heart of things here is not far to seek. It is the 
lesson taught in Scripture again and again, that the religion 
of the Bible is absolutely exclusive of all other religions. 

Neither Christianity nor Mosaism can be put into a pan- 
theon. When the ark of God was set up in the house of 
Dagon, they of Ashdod found the fish-god on his face with 
head and hands gone. In Ahab's day, as in our day, men 
supposed they might worship both Jehovah and Baal. Men 
in high place in the Christian church to-day are telling us 
that we must reconstruct our missionary ideals and methods, 
and recognize the many excellent things in the heathen re- 
ligions as giving a common ground upon which to build the 
better things of Christianity. "A great vantage ground 
would be gained were missionaries to see that idols were 
in the beginning mere symbols, and to lead the people back 
from the idol to the truth symbolized." Indeed, we are told 
that it is an insult to call such cultured people as the Hindu 
and Chinese "heathen." 

But Scripture knows nothing of this false "breath." "If 
Jehovah be God, follow Him, but if Baal, then follow him." 
"And the times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now 
commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent." "Neither is 
there salvation in any other: for there is none other name 
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." 
"I am the way, the truth and the life : no m.an cometh unto 
the Father but by me." "Ye turneth to God from idols to 



58 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

serve the living and the true God." "Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me." 

It is significant that when Jesus Christ, bringing in the 
new dispensation in which we Hve, reaffirmed the old ex- 
clusiveness, He spoke not of Baal nor of any of the old 
false gods, but of the false gods whom He foresaw as in a 
peculiar sense the symbol of Satan as the god of this age — 
mammon. ''Ye cannot serve God and mammon." In nothing 
is the contrast between the Jewish age and the Christian age 
more marked than in the new attitude toward wealth. Under 
the old order, wealth was a token of the divine blessing, and 
when Jesus said : "How hardly shall those that have riches 
enter the kingdom of God," the Jews exclaimed in amaze- 
ment : "Who then can be saved ?" 

As in ancient Israel men imagined that, notwithstanding 
the express words of the law, they might keep well with 
Baal and with Jehovah also, so no professing Christians 
imagine that they may serve both God and mammon. And 
precisely there, in the frantic pursuit, by millions of profess- 
ing Christians, of wealth as an object of life, may be found 
the open secret of the present powerlessness of the churches. 
The churches of one of the leading denominations in Illi- 
nois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, actually shrunk nu- 
merically last year ; and similar ominous signs are accumu- 
lating all round the horizon. But the members of those 
churches are as moral and decent in their lives as ever. No 
charge is made that they have gone off into flagrant vice. 
No, they are making the most of the present "era of pros- 
perity"; that is all. And that is a respectable sin which 
the pulpit does not feel itself called upon to rebuke. A dying 
millionaire, in a southwestern city, sent for his pastor. 
"Why," said the dying man, "did you never warn me of the 
sin of making wealth my pursuit?" "Because," answered 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 59 

the minister, '1 do not think it a sin to seek wealth." "Then 
I beg of you, study the word covetousness in your New Tes- 
tament," said the dying man: "I have been an idolater all 
my Hfe." 



* ELIJAH DISCOURAGED. 

(i Kings xix: i-8.) 
I. The Analysis. 

This touching story does not yield to rigid analysis. In 
the heart of the lesson (see below) its central spiritual theme 
is discussed. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The lesson for to-day, like Peter's denial, and Jacob's 
subterfuge, and David's sin, furnished a theme for endless 
sermonic moralizings, mostly of the self-complacent sort. 
One would fain raise a voice of protest against this misuse 
of great names by small men. But it would be useless ! The 
dealers in pious platitudes find the occasions too tempting. 

The old Puritan preachers, who certainly had brains for 
better things, especially delighted to set up their pulpits 
beside Elijah's juniper tree. "Aha!" begins one of them. 
"And is this our bold denouncer of king's vices ? Come out, 
come out, Elijah! Art thou afraid of a huzzy?" 

All this is contemptible enough, and might be passed over 
without remark, if it had not become in a sense the settled 
attitude of the Christian mind toward this episode in the 
life of Elijah — an attitude which completely misses the true 
meaning, and blinds us to one of the sweetest lessons in the 
book of God. 

The despondency of Elijah was natural enough. It was 



6o THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the reaction from the intense nervous tension of nearly four 
years of tremendous service; and the heart of the lesson 
must be found in the Lord's attitude towards His over- 
wrought servant. 

It certainly is noteworthy that Jehovah did not say any of 
the things which so monotonously recur in commentaries 
and sermons. And when Elijah said that he had been very 
jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, he said no more than 
the truth. When Paul writes at the end of his life, "I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept 
the faith," we do not accuse him of self-righteousness. And 
when Elijah said, "1, even I only, am left," he said what 
appeared to be the truth. Mr. Moody used to say that he 
would rather have been Elijah's little finger than all of the 
seven thousand secret disciples. 

No, what Jehovah did was very tender and very beautiful. 
He first of all gave Elijah what a man suffering from nerv- 
ous reaction most needs — sleep. "He giveth His beloved 
sleep" ; and a beautiful gift it is. And then He sent an 
angel to cook Elijah's breakfast. In verse 7 it is "The 
angel of the Lord," and many understand that expression as 
always referring to the second Person of the Trinity. If so, 
then it means that Jehovah-Jesus Himself prepared food for 
His servant, as afterward by the lake in Galilee, He laid 
bread and fish on the coals for another company of discour- 
aged disciples. 

And then He gave the prophet sleep again, and when he 
awoke, once more gave him food. What tenderness, what 
motherliness fills the heart of God for His weary, over- 
wrought, disheartened servants on earth ! Again and again, 
in the sense of their failure and weakness they say : "It is 
enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not 
better than my fathers" — forgetting that the divine love and 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 6i 

compassion will not respond by judgment, but by tenderest 
acts of restoration and of comfort. Elijah's God had a 
better thing for him than death under a juniper tree in the 
wilderness. God knew, what Elijah did not, that one com- 
ing day He would lead His aged servant dry-shod across 
Jordan, and there meet him with *'The chariot of the Lord 
and the horsemen thereof," thus to take him untouched of 
death, into the glory above. 



ELIJAH ENCOURAGED. 

(i Kings xix:9-i8.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Interview in the Cave (verses 9, 10). — Elijah 
was in the wrong place, but God sought him where he was. 
It reminds us of the first question in Scripture, the "Where 
art thou" of Gen. iii : 9. A God forsaking saint is not a 
God forsaken saint. 

2. The Interview on the Mount Before the Lord (verses 
11-14). (See below.) 

3. Elijah Again Brought into Service (verses 15-18). — 
Elijah is not expelled from Jehovah's service, but is sent 
upon the highest of embassies. The Lord does not reject 
His servants because of their seasons of despondency. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The might of quietness — the truth that God's work is best 
done in the world when men have learned the way of the 
peaceful heart — that is evidently central in this lesson. The 
Lord was not in the wind, though it brake in pieces the 
rocks before Him ; He was not in the earthquake, though it 



62 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

shook Horeb like a reed ; He was not in the fire, though it 
may have swept the mountain as with a besom of wrath. 
But He was in the still small voice. 

Here is a message to this age of noise and clamor and lust 
for "power," and display of fleshly energy and wordy en- 
thusiasm, and mighty conventions which proclaim that they 
are going to "take the world for Christ" — by committees ! 
Elijah had been a man of the earthquake, the wind, and the 
fire. Perhaps there are times when such men must be, but 
God would not let Elijah pass from the scene without mak- 
ing it forever clear that such men and such methods are 
apart from His customary ways. His work is ever after 
the way of the building of Solomon's temple : "There was 
neither hammer, nor ax, nor any tool of iron, heard in the 
house while it was in building" (i Kings vi: 7). 

For no student of Scripture can doubt that the Lord is 
ever in. the still small voice. What are the great prophetic 
messages ? "The work of righteousness shall be peace, and 
the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever " 
"He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be 
heard in the street." "I will be as the dew unto Israel : 
he shall grow up as the lily." "Not by might nor by power, 
but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." Think of the great words 
of Jesus, the words most central in His message. They are 
rest, peace, joy. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in 
heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke 
is easy, and my burden is light." "These things have I 
spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace." And, 
as all know, these are Paul's great words, and John's. 

And how blessed they are to the heart aweary of the 
hortatory whips and spurs under which God's dear servants 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 63 

are driven in these days to that over-organized, overstrained 
thing which, as if in irony, is called "the Lord's work." Is 
it indeed the work of the Lord ? Did the Lord hold shout- 
ing conventions, and multiply presidencies, and secretary- 
ships, and committees ? The true work of the Lord is done 
when restful and quiet hearts trust Him to work through 
them. *'So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast 
seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and 
day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth 
not how." The seven thousand in Israel who had not 
bowed the knee unto Baal were Jehovah's converts, not 
Elijah's. Indeed, he did not know of their existence. 



ELIJAH TAKEN UP INTO HEAVEN. 

(2 Kings ii: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Walk to Jordan (verses 1-7). — The walks of 
Scripture would furnish material for a series of wonderfully 
helpful meditations. This is one of the most significant of 
them — the walk to power. The sons of the prophets make a 
poor figure here: they have knowledge (verse 5), but are 
utterly destitute of faith, and they seek to discourage the 
one earnest man in the land. 

2. The Crossing of Jordan (verse 8). — As the Red Sea 
stands for Christ's death for us, so the crossing of Jordan 
signifies our death with Him (Rom. vi: 1-5) as the coming 
up out of Jordan speaks of resurrection life shared with 
Him. 

3. The Rapture of Elijah (verses 9-11). — Elijah is here 
an illustration of the future rapture of the church (i Thess. 
iv: 1-16). 



64 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

If we think of Elijah only, or even chiefly, the two great 
outstanding truths of this lesson are, first, that a Christian 
life — any Christian life — is a unity ; it has a climax, but not 
anti-climax. If Elijah had died under the juniper tree, as 
he desired to do, that would have been indeed a sad anti- 
cHmax to a life so full of the whirlwind and of fire. And 
the other truth is that in the translation of Elijah we have 
at once a proof that death is not inevitable to the believer 
(i Cor. XV : 51, 52), and that life survives the change from 
earth to heaven, for, centuries after, this same Elijah is 
with Christ in the Transfiguration. 

But, dramatic as is the whole scene which the lesson 
brings before us, and central as is Elijah in that drama, I 
cannot but feel that we shall find the deeper and more abid- 
ing truths of the lesson in what is there said of Elisha. 
There is something most significant in the order of places 
along the line of Elisha's last walk with the elder prophet. 

That fateful walk of Elijah to glory, and of Elisha to 
mighty power, follows an order which must, essentially, be 
reproduced in the experience of every child of God who 
enters into a vital experience of God's best. That walk 
began at Gilgal. The typical significance of Gilgal cannot 
be mistaken by any reader of Joshua. Gilgal was the place 
where a redeemed people rolled away "the reproach of 
Egypt" (Joshua v: i-ii). The reproach of Egypt was that 
there the Israelites had neglected circumcision, the divinely 
commanded sign of their separation as a people; and typi- 
cally Gilgal stands for practical separation from the world, 
and unto God. We may say, therefore, that as a separated 
man, Elisha began the quest of power. 

The next stage was Bethel, "house of God," the place of 
vision, of spiritual insight, for Bethel was the place where 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 65 

Jehovah gave to Jacob the great ladder vision (Gen. xxviii: 
11-19). To have tarried at Bethel would have been analo- 
gous to that satisfaction with mere knowledge of divine 
things — a snare to-day to thousands of the best instructed 
believers. No soul can thrive on the mere knowledge of 
positional truth. There is an experience corresponding to 
position, and he who would go into the fulness of Christian 
blessing must not be satisfied with being in the land, but 
must eat the old corn of that land — a Christ in glory. He 
must go on from Bethel to Jordan. 

Jordan stands for the New Testament truth, "crucified 
with Christ." This truth, too, may be held as a mere Bible 
doctrine ; but there is a making of that truth real in experi- 
ence, a "receiving of the sentence of death in self," a "bear- 
ing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus" which 
is very different from merely reiterating a doctrine. There, 
on the resurrection side of Jordan, the gift of power awaited 
the prophet. 



ISRAEL REPROVED. 

(Amos v: 4-15.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. God Outside the Former Means of Blessing (verses 
1-6). — See below. 

2. The Resource of An Apostate People (verses 7-10). 
— God always remains, no matter how deep the transgres- 
sion, and the way back to Him is ever open. 

3. The Sins of Israel (verses 11-15). — It is most strik- 
ing that here we have enumerated the conspicuous sins of 
the present time. 

5 



66 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The significant thing here is that God puts Himself out- 
side the accustomed, time-honored and even divinely insti- 
tuted places of blessing. Corrupt and iniquitous Israel is 
exhorted to "seek the Lord," but not at Bethel, Gilgal, nor 
Beersheba. 

This is no new thing in the ways of God, nor is this by 
any means an isolated instance. The brazen serpent which 
had been so wonderfully used of God, instrumentally, in the 
wilderness (Numbers xxi: 8, 9), became, at last, a fetich to 
the people, and then to God "nehustan," a piece of brass 
(2 Kings xviii:4). How solemnly and with what awful 
sanctions was Jerusalem set apart as the place where God 
had set His name, and where alone sacrifices and offerings 
might be made to Him. But, when the place rather than 
the God of the place became the sacred fact in the thought 
of the people, how easily was it said, "Woman believe me, 
the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor 
yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father." 

With what mighty promises Israel was set apart as God's 
portion, and with what minuteness of inspired detail was 
its ritual established, and yet, how summarily was it all 
swept aside when, as an instrument, it broke in the divine 
hand. The very religion which He had ordained became, 
without the change of a single form or ceremony, a mere 
"Jew's religion" (Gal. i:i3) in His eyes. "Let us there- 
for go forth unto Him without the camp," becomes the call 
to the faithful. 

The application of this tremendous principle is obvious. 
The one vital question in any age is, Where is God now? 
Much has been made, is being made of the question, Which 
is the true church? But even if it could be demonstrated 
that, historically, this or that was the original church, such 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES e'] 

demonstration would not go one step toward proving that 
God had not long ago spewed it out of His mouth as His 
representative. And if this be true of ancient churches hav- 
ing some claim to historic continuity from the apostles, how 
much more may it be true of our Protestant sects which are 
of yesterday? 

The deeper truth is, of course, that whenever the sect, or 
the creed, or the form, becomes the sacred thing, the object 
of loyalty, so that we boast ourselves of being loyal to it, 
rather than to Him, it becomes "nehushtan." 

It can scarcely be necessary to add that the reference to 
a search or the "true" church, is illustrative, merely. There 
never was a ''true church," using that word in the modern 
sense of a church made up of a body of churches. The Bible 
knows nothing of such a ''church." The Bible knows in- 
deed of a church "which is His body, the fulness of Him 
which filleth all in all" ; and it knows, too, of local churches, 
but not of an aggregation of local churches which compose 
a church. 

The believer who has wandered from God may return to 
Him in confession any time, anywhere, and believers who 
seek His fellowship find Him ever with outstretched arms. 



ELISHA SUCCEEDS ELIJAH. 

(2 Kings ii: 12-22.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Condition Met (verse 12). — Elijah had said that 
if Elisha saw him when he w^as taken up, the Spirit should 
come upon him as he had prayed. 

2. The Energy of Faith (verses 13, 14).- — True faith 
counts upon God's faithfulness. Nothing is said of any 



68 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

peculiar feelings on Elisha's part. He had met a divine 
condition, and expected the answering power. 

3. The Barrenness of Knowledge Without Faith (verses 
15-18). See "Heart of Lesson." 

4. The Second Miracle (verses 19-22). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Many things in this wonderful lesson appeal for the place 
of primacy. The faith of Elisha is one of them. Possibly 
the Bible furnishes no instance of faith which surpasses 
this, save the faith of the repentant thief on the cross. 
When Elisha took up the fallen mantle of Elijah, and in 
the full view of the fifty doubting theological students on 
the other bank, smote the waters of Jordan, calling upon 
the Lord God of Elijah, he had absolutely no warrant for 
his faith but the word of the departed prophet of God that 
Spirit power should rest upon him if he met the condition : 
"If thou see me when I am taken from thee." He had met 
the condition, and his faith, resting upon the immutable 
word of God, expected the power to be manifested. Just 
at this point of expectancy thousands of believers fail to- 
day. Having complied with the biblical conditions of the 
filling with the Spirit, they halt and wait for feeling. It 
might be a very perilous thing for a servant of Christ to 
feel strong. Paul reminds the Corinthians that he was 
with them in weakness, fear, and much trembling, and that 
just then his preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit 
and of power. Indeed, he expressed an habitual experience 
in the phrase, "When I am weak then am I strong." 

Then, too, the sons of the prophets present a great temp- 
tation to a writer on this lesson. They present all the 
characteristics of machine-made prophets — characteristics 
repeated in every age. They had knowledge (2 Kings ii : 3) , 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 69 

but did not really believe the thing they knew. They knew 
that Elijah was to be taken that day, but they did not believe 
that he had been taken (2 Kings ii : 16-18) ; and they 
"bowed themselves to the ground" before a real prophet. 
Knowledge is good, and the prophets of God should have 
knowledge; but the man-made prophets and the God-made 
prophets differ just at the one point of triumphant, resistless 
faith. And faith is something the schools of the prophets 
are far more likely to destroy than to create, to impair than 
to strengthen. 

But the effort in the writing of ''The Heart of the Lesson" 
is to discover in each lesson the truth which is deepest, most 
formative. Examples of faith, and instances of knowledge 
without faith abound in Scripture, and are by no means pe- 
culiar to this lesson. 

Is not the heart of things here to be found in the fact 
that the one eternal Spirit manifests Himself and His power 
so variously through different men ? The same Spirit came 
upon the gentle Elisha, who had inspired and empowered 
the tempestuous Elijah. Two greatly precious conclusions 
follow. First, that the Spirit acts through, and not con- 
trary to, the human personality. The method of inspiration 
illustrates this truth. Every book of the Bible is instinct 
with the distinctive personality of its writer. John does 
not write like Paul, nor Paul like Peter, nor Peter like 
Isaiah, yet all of them wrote in the very words given by the 
Holy Spirit. By personality is meant of course those quali- 
ties which make each human being to differ from all otber 
human beings. 

And the other lesson is that the work of God in the 
world requires an almost infinite variety of instrumentali- 
ties. When a Wesley, or a Spurgeon, or a Moody dies, the 
cry goes up to God for another like man, but the man whom 



70 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

God sends is never another Wesley or Spurgeon or Moody. 
Let our cry to-day, when the need of a new voice of power 
is so great, not be "Where is EHjah?" but "Where is the 
Lord God of EHjah?" Somewhere, be sure, He has ready 
our EHsha. 



THE WIDOW'S OIL INCREASED. 

(2 Kings iv: 1-7.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Cry of Need (verse i). — This widow and this 
widow's prophet ahke beheved that Jehovah would in some 
way show Himself the husband of the widow and tlie 
Father of the fatherless. 

2. The Dimne Method of Supply (verse 2). — See "The 
Heart of the Lesson." 

3. The Triumphant Answer to the Cry of Need (verses 
3-7). — There is always the mark of abundance upon God's 
answers. He is a great God, and does not bestow like a 
miser, but like a king. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The incident related in this lesson is in itself but one of 
the evidences of the power and love of God as shown in 
His providences, in which Scripture abounds. But there 
are certain details which clearly point toward great prin- 
ciples of the divine government, and these principles are per- 
manent and therefore well worth our learning. 

The first is that God begins with what we have. "Thine 
handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil." 
But that pot of oil, plus the creative power of God, was 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 71 

quite enough. It is the principle underlying the miracle of 
the loaves and fishes : "We have here but five loaves and 
two small fishes, but what are they among so many ?" They 
were enough and more than enough, when Jesus had added 
to them His power. But the point is that He began with 
what the disciples had. Most Christian lives are, so far as 
human eye can see, barren and unfruitful. May it not well 
be largely because we are saying within ourselves that if 
only we had more time, or money, or capacity, or gift, we 
would do great things for God, while God is only asking 
that what we have shall be brought to Him to multiply ? 

A man once told Mr. Moody that he was asking God for 
money to care for five thousand orphans ; and Mr. Moody 
said : "Friend, begin with one ; you could take care of one, 
could you not ? Well, find that one, and turn your home into 
an orphanage." Mr. Moody began the great Northfield 
Seminary in his own home, a plain New England farm 
house. 

It is the old story of Moses protesting his lack of elo- 
quence while all the time he held in his hand the old shep- 
herd's crook which, cast down before God and then taken 
up again at God's command, became that "rod of God" with 
which Israel was delivered. It is the old story of Sham- 
gar's ox goad, and Dorcas' needle. 

There is the story of the winning of a great prize at a 
flower show by a poor woman w^ho lived in an attic and had 
but one flower in a pot. But she tended that one flower and 
kept it in the sun, and watered it and fertilized it until it 
was more beautiful than any flower in any nobleman's con- 
servatory. Every behever has some gift of the Spirit (i 
Cor. xii:7-27), and the Lord lays upon none of us any 
greater burden than just to use that gift. 

And a second great principle of the divine outworking 



^2 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

is that He multiplies as we pour out. Somewhere in Eu- 
rope I saw a painting of the miracle of the water made 
wine at Cana, and the artist had caught the very secret of 
matter, for the liquid left the vessels water, crystal clear, 
and entered the water pots wine, ruby red. It was trans- 
formed between the vessel it left and the vessel it entered. 
The sun's rays traverse millions of miles of space black as 
blackest midnight and inconceivably cold, and it is only 
when they strike upon the atmosphere of earth that they 
burst into a glory of light and warmth. If we now add to 
these two truths the significance of the element used in this 
miracle, oil, we shall have a deeply important lesson all told 
out. For oil is constantly the symbol of the Holy Spirit. 
Every believer has received the Spirit, contains the Spirit 
(i Cor. vi : 19; Rom. viiiiQ; i John ii : 20, 2"j^ — a mighty 
fact' big with possibilities in life and service. But Christ, 
using another symbol of the Spirit, water, teaches that the 
manifestation of the Spirit is not stagnation, but motion — 
the upspringing fountain, the outflowing rivers. When, 
then, we exercise our gift, however small it may seem, the 
Spirit Himself moves. The whole secret of true service, 
and of multiplied power and blessing lies, then, in that ques- 
tion, "What hast thou in the house pour out into all 

those vessels." 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 73 

ELISHA AND THE SHUNAMITE. 

(2 Kings iv: 25-37.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Faith of the Shunamite (verses 25, 26). — The 
woman's answer, "It is well," was a sublime instance of 
true faith. Her child lay dead, but she could still say, "It 
is well." 

2. The Sorrow Told Out (verses 2y, 28). — Faith says, 
"It is well" in the very instant that faith grasps as it were 
the feet of God to tell Him all the sorrowful story. 

3. The Fruitless Errand (verses 29-32). — See "The 
Heart of the Lesson." 

4. The Effective Service (verses 32-37). — See "The 
Heart of the Lesson." 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The intensely vital character of true Christian service is 
the heart of things here. There is a vast deal of so-called 
Christian service which is naught but sending a servant with 
a dead stick. If there -is a need somewhere we proceed to 
organize. A society is formed, or at least a committee. 
These require chairmen, secretaries, treasurers, and, above 
all, much, very much, talk. Then these chairmen, secretaries 
and treasurers are supposed to be in "Christian service," 
and all the rest of us, who are not officers, but "belong," are 
also supposed to be in "Christian service." If it is a home 
aflfair the "service" consists in holding stated meetings of 
the society or committee, and in more or less zealous efforts 
to induce others to "join." As some one has wittily said, 
"We have a lookout committee, but not a go-out committee." 

If it is a foreign affair we send some one, after a farewell 



74 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

meeting somewhat after the fashion of that which Elisha 
held for Gehazi. What a ''charge" that was ! "Gird up thy 
loins, and take thy staff in thine hand, and go thy way : if 
thou meet any man salute him not." How impressive ! The 
staff we send by our Gehazi has been fashioned and polished 
during three years in a theological seminary. Thank God 
many a Gehazi finds a better one, a living and life-giving 
staff in the Word of God — but we do not require him to 
have this staff, but only that. 

And when, equipped well or ill, we once send Gehazi we 
practically wash our hands of him. A few pray for him, a 
few send him of their substance, but for the immense ma- 
jority of us, he is a forgotten Gehazi. And all this, and 
more of like method and quality, we call Christian service. 
And Christian service it truly is for him who, in real de- 
votedness to Christ, goes ; and Christian service it truly is 
for those who, in ceaseless prayer, and in sacrificial gifts, 
are really, in the sent one stretching themselves upon the 
spiritually dead ones to whom he has gone — but for us ! 
Alas, what mockery ! 

True service costs, and costs vitally — costs life itself. Not 
a dead staff but a living heart laid upon a dead heart — that 
counts, and that, be it repeated, costs. 

When the woman in the Syrian street touched the sway- 
ing hem of Christ's seamless robe as He walked, she was 
instantly healed. What else? The Lord of life stopped. 
'*Who hath touched me? for I perceive that virtue is gone 
out of me." The woman was healed, but it cost, cost vitality. 

An American woman whose giving is the giving of a 
princess of the kingdom of God, said to me : *'It is so easy 
just to sign checks if one happens to have money at the 
bank, but I don't think that counts unless we find a way to 
give ourselves, too." 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 75 

And we must remember the terms of our commission, 
"Go ye." Doubtless the Lord knew that the church would 
soon come to read that personal imperative, "Send Gehazi," 
but nevertheless what He actually said was "Go ye!' One 
does not recall that he ever, when message bearing was in 
question, asked a disciple to ask another disciple to go. 

All this does not mean that some measure of organization 
is not necessary to some spheres of Christian service. Good 
order and efficiency sometimes requires this; but it does 
mean that in so far as we are not ourselves losing our lives 
in this service that we may find them again, we are mere 
senders of Gehazi. For He who said of Himself, "except a 
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alonC; 
but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit," said in the next 
breath, "if any man will save his life he shall lose it, but 
if he lose his life for my sake and the Gospel's he shall find 
it again." 



ELISHA AND NAAMAN. 

(2 Kings v: 1-14.) 
L The Analysis. 

1. The Fatal Word of Three Letters (verse i). — If we 
could see as God sees we should say that the most fortunate 
man on earth is the most unfortunate if his sin has never 
been taken away. 

2. The Faithful Witness (verses 2-4). — There is some- 
thing touching both in the courage and compassion of this 
little captive maid. She was the victim of a great wrong, 
but free from resentment. 

3. The Reasoning of the Flesh (verses 5-7). — See "The 
Heart of the Lesson." 



76 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

4. The True Remedy (verses 8-14). — See "The Heart 
of the Lesson." 

5. The Peril of Naainan from Three Enemies (verses 
II, 12). — See "The Heart of the Lesson." 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The story of Naaman has been the theme of countless 
Gospel sermons, and rightly so, for it is packed with Gospel 
analogies. These group about, or grow out of, certain sig- 
nificant words or phrases. The first of these is that little 
"but" which mocked all the good fortune of Naaman and 
shut the sunshine out of his life. Everything favored him 
"but" — . He was captain of the host — "but." He was a 
great man and honorable — "but." Mighty was he in valor 
— "but." He was even a man whom the Lord had used 
providentially — "but he was a leper." 

That little qualifying word of three letters nullified all the 
great swelling words in which his state and prosperity were 
described. 

The writer, in years agone, had a friend whom the world 
envied. He was stately of stature, great of intellect, clean, 
brave, successful. He had a beautiful young wife whom he 
idolized. One day his doctor met him on the court house 
steps. "I do not like your color ; come at once to see me." 
The next day he passed two hours with three physicians in 
consultation. At the end they said: "Set your house in 
order; you have three months of life at farthest." The 
world envied him — "but." 

And so one might go through this lesson, finding in all 
the pivotal words wonderful Gospel analogies. 

But we are concerned with the heart of the lesson and 
that seems to lie in the fact that Naaman came so perilously 
near to missing his healing. With a perfect knowledge of 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES "j^ 

the conditions which, once met, made his recovery sure, he 
actually "turned and went away in a rage." 

Three enemies of Naaman's, all pampered and nourished 
by him as his dearest friends, came near to accomplishing 
his destruction that day. They were all within his own 
heart, as they are within the heart of every one of us. 

The first enemy was Pride. In the very outset Pride be- 
gan to work. Pride said: *'You are a great man; go on 
this journey in state. Impress this prophet with the fact 
that he has no common leper to deal with. Then Pride was 
ready to suggest an affront because the prophet did not come 
out to so distinguished and celebrated a leper. 

The second enemy was Preconception. "Behold I thought 
he will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the 
name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the 
place? Naaman had a preconceived opinion or plan con- 
cerning the manner of his healing. Thousands of sinners 
have, often unconsciously no doubt, a plan about their con- 
version. Appealed to in a quiet conversation, or in a quiet 
meeting, to make an instant decision for Christ, they draw 
back — "Not now, not this way." 

And the third of Naaman's enemies that day was Preju- 
dice. "Jordan?" said Prejudice, "Wash in Jordan?" The 
rivers of Damascus are better. Suppose Spurgeon, Baptist 
born and Baptist bred, had said to the Spirit that stormy 
morning in the Primitive Methodist chapel, "What a Spur- 
geon converted in a Methodist chapel ? Never !" How the 
current of his life, of uncounted thousands of lives, might 
have been changed. It is awful to die without Christ in an 
African jungle, but to turn away from the Gospel in a land 
of Bibles and churches, oh, this is more unspeakably tragic. 



78 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ELISHA AT DOTHAN. 

(2 Kings vi: 8-23.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Perplexity and Wrath of the King (verses 8-13). 
— The world is often puzzled by the deliverances of the 
Lord's people. Be sure back of the event is ever the hand 
of God. 

2. The Unseen Resources of the Saints (verses 14-17). 
—See ''The Heart of the Lesson." 

3. The Pozver of God and the Prayer of Faith (verses 
18-21). — EHsha called upon the unseen God and the answer 
came. 

4. The Pity of the Saintly Heart (verses 21-23). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The unseen, but none the less real, resources of the man 
of God — that, obviously, is at the core of things here. It 
is a timely lesson. Never before in the history of the church 
have the forces of anti-supernaturalism been so numerous, 
never before have their assaults at every point been so de- 
termined and continuous. 

Probably the projection into the thought of the world of 
the hypothesis of evolution began the battle; probably this 
hypothesis is back of every assault. It seemed to ehminate 
God, if not as the remote first Cause, at least from every 
succeeding step of causation in the universe. Then the 
whole ground of supernaturalism became a battlefield. Mir- 
acle was declared to be a scientific absurdity ; the inspiration 
and authority of the Bible were first questioned, then de- 
nied, and now, as Dale of Birmingham predicted thirty 
years ago, the storm is gathering ''above one sacred Head," 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 79 

in the philosophic evaporation into nothingness of the virgin 
birth of our Lord, and the denial of His physical resurrec- 
tion. 

With these negations as weapons of open and avowed 
adversaries of supernaturalism we have been long familiar — 
the peril of to-day is that those weapons are in the hands of 
avowed friends. 

And yet it remains true that Christianity is essentially 
supernatural, or else it is false. Paul's triumphant chal- 
lenge cannot be ehminated from Christianity without de- 
stroying it. "Without controversy great is the mystery of 
godliness ; God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the 
Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed 
on in the world, received up into glory." 

Nay, he makes the whole system to hinge, not upon its 
ethical beauty, as is the present day fashion, but upon the 
physical fact of Christ's resurrection : "If Christ be not 
raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in yours sins." 

And the Christian ethic is as supernatural as the Gospel 
history. "Christianity," said an acute and not unfriendly 
critic, "is the impossible religion. No man can be as good 
as Christianity requires all men to be." And no truer thing 
was ever said if there are no supernatural powers encamped 
round about the believer. Christian character includes mor- 
ality, but rises heaven high above it. Christian character is 
"love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
meekness, temperance," and not one of those graces is in- 
digenous in the natural heart; they are all exotics. But 
the "mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire round 
about" the Christian. The whole power of God is round 
about and within him. He that is for us is ever and always 
more than they that be against us. Prayer is as practical 
a force as electricity or steam. The angels still live and still 



8o THINGS NEW AND OLD 

serve. The Holy Spirit has lost no whit of His power. 
God is still faithful who promised, and will not suffer us to 
be tempted above that we are able, but will with the tempta- 
tion also make a way of escape. Christ still lives to make in- 
tercession for us, and is still able to keep to the uttermost 
all who come unto God by Him. He is still touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities, and still able to succor us 
when tempted. 



THE CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. 

(2 Chron. xxxvi: 11-21.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Wicked King (verses 11-14). — Note that the re- 
jection of the words of Jeremiah was in reality the rejection 
of God's words. 

2. The Wicked Priests (verse 14). — The priests were, 
equally with the king, rejectors of the word of the Lord. In 
all history priests side with kings against prophets. 

3. Warning and Judgment (verses 15-20). — This is ever 
the divine way — warning precedes judgment. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

''Till there was no remedy" — that awful phrase opens the 
deepest heart of this lesson. It is not, observe that man 
had no remedy as against the king of the Chaldees, but that 
God had no remedy for His people — "till there was no 
remedy." There had been a remedy. Jeremiah and Isaiah 
and all the preexile prophets had published abroad the di- 
vine and perfect remedy. Isaiah had said, "Hearken to me, 
ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord : 
look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 8i 

the pit whence ye are digged." "If ye be willing and obedi- 
ent, ye shall eat the good of the land." 

Jeremiah had cried : ''O Jerusalem, wash thine heart 
from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved." "The word 
that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Stand in the 
gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and 
say. Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah that enter 
in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith the Lord 
of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your 
doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place." 

In Jehovah was a perfect remedy for all the evil of Judah, 
but — "They mocked the messengers of God, and despised 
His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the 
Lord arose against His people, and there was no remedy f' 

In other words, when God's remedy is rejected, "there 
is no remedy." 

Doubtless the majority called Jeremiah a "gloomy pessi- 
mist." The times were good, the comfort of life constantly 
increased, men spoke of the ruder times of their fathers 
and boasted of progress. The priests would be ready to 
point out the improbability, even the absurdity, of the notion 
that Jehovah would permit His city and temple to be over- 
thrown. Had not Israel a great mission yet unaccomplished 
so long as all peoples did not recognize the unity of God? 
To say that He would destroy the religion which He had 
Himself planted would be to say that the purposes of God 
were thwarted. 

Just so men reason in this Gospel age. To speak of 
coming judgments of an apostate church, of another advent 
of Christ, is to say that the Gospel has failed. 

The answer both then and now is that neither the ulti- 
mate purposes of God through Israel nor through the Gospel 
will fail. It is men who fail; men who become apostate, 
6 



82 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

whether in Israel or the church and then ''there is no rem- 
edy," so far as men are concerned. But God remains, and 
in other ways He accompHshes His purposes. 

Judah was judged and sent into captivity. ''There was no 
remedy" for that. Judah, after seventy years, was restored 
and held in the land till Christ came and was rejected. Then 
again "there was no remedy," and Judah was sent into a 
dispersion which still continues. But Israel will be restored, 
and then, that people will not fail. 



THE LIFE-GIVING STREAM. 

(Ezek. xlvii : 1-12.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Source of the River (verses 1-2). — All blessing 
proceeds from the altar. 

2. The Magnitude of the River (verses 3-5). 

3. The Power of the River (verses 6-12). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Perhaps no passage of the prophetic Scriptures has been 
more tortured out of its right and true meaning than this. 
By most commentators it has been taken as a symbol of the 
spread of the Gospel in a stream ever wider and deeper till 
the whole world has been converted. But against this inter- 
pretation three objections lie. i. The Scriptures do not 
teach the conversion of the whole world by the preaching of 
the Gospel, but rather that the present age is to witness the 
outcalling of a people for His name, who are to form the 
church which is His body. 2. Other Scriptures make it 
clear that the river is to be a literal river, issuing from the 
temple which will be built in Jerusalem after the restoration 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 83 

of the Jews (Zech. xiv:8; Rev. xxii : i). 3. The seas into 
which it will flow will be the Dead Sea and the Mediter- 
ranean, though the former is most prominent. Such geo- 
graphical indications are too much a vital part of the narra- 
tive to be set aside by the necessities of a fanciful interpreta- 
tion. It will be remembered that in connection with the 
judgment of the nations and the return of the Lord, cata- 
clysmic changes are predicted for the reign about Jerusalem ; 
"The mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof 
toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a 
very great valley." "All the land shall be turned as a plain, 
from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem (Zech. xiv:4, 

10). 

Strange that this should seem incredible to a generation 
which has seen the blowing into mere dust of the Krakatoa 
by an explosion from within, and of the desolation of a 
whole land by the eruption of Mount Pelee ! Why should 
not a little hill like the Mount of Olives cleave in the midst 
thereof ? Why should not the God who brought water out 
of a rock in the wilderness, bring a river out of Mount 
Moriah ? 

So much for interpretation. But application and interpre- 
tation are quite different things. The Sermon on the Mount 
is to be interpreted of the future kingdom, but it is always 
true that the meek are happy, and that the pure in heart 
see God. 

So there may well be an application of EzekieFs river to 
the work of the Holy Spirit now. W^ater is even a type of 
both the Spirit and the word, and Christ uses "rivers of 
living water" (John vii : 49) to illustrate the work of the 
Spirit at and after Pentecost. 

The ankles speak of the walk, and suggest "walking in the 
Spirit." The righteousness of the law is "fulfilled in us 



84 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit" (Rom. viii : 
6), and "if we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lusts 
of the flesh" (Gal. v: i6). 

Again, the knees suggest prayer, and we are reminded 
that it is peculiarly the Christian's privilege to "pray in the 
Spirit." Perhaps there is no greater need than this — that we 
cease to pray in the sphere of the will or of the desires, and 
learn to abandon ourselves to the Spirit that He may pray 
through us. 

And so the loins speak of service. No truth for this dis- 
pensation stands out more clearly than that all fruitful and 
acceptable service must be in the power of the Spirit. The 
very apostles of our Lord, men who had been for three years 
under His personal training, and to whom, after His resur- 
rection he had taught kingdom truth for forty days (Acts 
i:3), were forbidden to begin their great mission till they 
were endued with power from on high. How presumptuous, 
then, for us to presume to serve except in the power of the 
Spirit. 

"Waters to swim in" speak of the divine fulness which is 
for us. 

But perhaps the heart of this lesson is to be found in the 
one exception to the healing power of the waters. *'But the 
miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be 
healed." 

The interpretation here is, of course, liberal, but the ap- 
plication is obvious. A miry place and a marsh are places 
where much water has already come in vain. The miry 
place has turned it into mud, and the marsh into an uncul- 
tivable bog — a place of miasma and malaria. Surely here is 
an apt picture of one upon whom the convictive and per- 
suasive influences of the Spirit have come in vain. "For the 
earth that drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 85 

bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, 
receiveth blessing from God : but that which beareth thorns 
and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end 
is to be burned. 



DANIEL IN BABYLON. 

(Daniel i:8-20.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Purpose of Daniel's Heart (verse 8). 

2. The Answering Favor of God (verse 9). 

3. 7'he Perplexity of the Steward and the Victorious 
Test (verses 10-20). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The heart of this lesson is the exceeding value of a definite 
heart purpose. ''Daniel purposed in his heart." That is the 
key to the character of Daniel, and the key also to his life 
story. "Daniel purposed in his heart to be loyal to Jehovah 
in even so minor a detail of obedience as eating and drink- 
ing, and we may reverently say that Jehovah purposed in 
His heart that Daniel should be a monument in Babylon of 
His power and wisdom. And we read : "And Daniel con- 
tinued even unto the first year of King Cyrus." That was 
God*s answer to Daniel's purpose of heart. King followed 
king in Babylon, even the dynasty changed, but "Daniel con- 
tinued." Great cabals were formed of might}^ princes and 
influential courtiers to put down Daniel, but "Daniel con- 
tinued." Daniel himself was a sinner (ix:2o), but "Daniel 
continued." The one steadfast thing in all that changing, 
shifting court was an alien and hated Jew because Daniel 



86 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

had "purposed in his heart," and because Jehovah had pur- 
posed in His heart. 

Do not suppose the purpose in Daniel's heart arose from a 
mere dietary question — of whether the king's meat, or pulse, 
were the better food. Not at all. Daniel belonged to a 
people in covenant relations with God. In Daniel's nation 
the government was a theocracy. Whoever might sit visibly 
on David's throne, the invisible One was the real king, and 
He had ordered even the dietary of His people. Daniel 
would not eat the king of Babylon's meat because Daniel's 
king had instructed otherwise. 

Think how many excuses Daniel might have made at the 
bar of his own conscience. He might have pleaded his cir- 
cumstances. He was in Babylon through no wish of his 
own. God in His providence had permitted him to be car- 
ried away captive. He might have pleaded a reasonable and 
prudent, self-interest, fearing, not unreasonably, to offend 
that irresponsible despot whose slave he was. He might 
have pleaded the relative unimportance of the matter. 

It was no question of breaking the moral law. He was 
not asked to worship other gods, nor to bear false witness, 
nor to blaspheme. It was just a question of eating and 
drinking — why carry to such an extreme the puritanic cus- 
toms of remote and provincial Judaea? 

Thousands of young men have reasoned thus who have 
gone down from the home farm to the new scenes and new 
ways of the great city, and thousands have fallen by the way 
just because they had not firmness of moral fibre and 
strength of conviction to purpose in their hearts to maintain 
the temperance in eating and drinking in which they had 
been nurtured, and which their best convictions approved. 

Other thousands have maintained simplicity of life, but 
have given way at the point of business rectitude. Great 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 87 

financial prosperity may have come to some of them, but at 
the awful cost of an approving conscience, and, too often, 
of an old age of public contempt and obloquy. 

The story of Daniel can never grow old so long as there 
are young men to be tempted to surrender principle at the 
demand of expediency — so long as men and women of any 
age are called upon to choose between the easy way of con- 
formity to lower standards, and the other way of a purpose- 
ful heart. 



DANIEL AND BELSHAZZAR. 

(Daniel v: 17-30.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Unheeded Lesson of History (verses 17-24). 
Daniel rehearses to Belshazzar the well-known circum- 
stances of his father's reign. The impressive lessons of that 
history Belshazzar had passed by unheeded. Now nothing 
remains but his deposition. 

2. The irreversible sentence (verses 25-30) . Belshazzar 
was yet a very young man. It is one of the fearful things 
about sin that the human heart may become hopelessly set in 
the love of it at a very early age. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

We must bear in mind the peculiar circumstances under 
which the prophet Daniel writes. He was a Jewish prophet, 
but a prophet out of the land. Israel, under the chastening 
hand of Jehovah, often warned, but apostate and unheeding, 
has been given into captivity under the Babylonian power of 
Nebuchadnezzar. With the captivity, and with the empire 
of Nebuchadnezzar begun that long period of Gentile world- 



88 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

empire which our Lord designates as "the times of the Gen- 
tiles'' (Luke xxi:24), which still continues, and which will 
continue till *'the God of the heavens" (Daniel ii:44) shall 
smite with judgment the whole fabric of Gentile civilization 
and authority, and set up a kingdom which shall never be 
destroyed (Dan. ii:44; vii: 14-18). The visible token and 
sign of the continuance of the times of the Gentiles is that 
Jerusalem is under alien and Gentile domination. That dom- 
ination, be it remembered, is not broken by the gradual ab- 
sorption into the kingdom of heaven of the Gentiles, through 
conversion. The end of Gentile political supremacy over the 
Jew and over the earth is sudden, catastrophic, destructive 
(Daniel ii:34, 35; vii : 9-1 1; Rev. xix:ii-2i; i Thess. 
v:2, 3; 2 Thess. ii: 3-8). 

Daniel, then, placed at the beginning of this long period 
in which we still Hve, writes on two great themes : First, he 
tells, prophetically, the whole course and end of the times of 
the Gentiles, i. e., the present civilization ; and, secondly, he 
enters into minute details concerning the events in which 
Gentiledom ends, especially as those events bear upon the 
Jews. 

Putting ourselves, then, at Daniel's viewpoint, it is not 
difficult to see that the heart of this lesson is to be found in 
that explanation of Elohim's disciplinary dealing with Neb- 
uchadnezzar, the first of the Gentile World-Kings, which we 
have in verses 18-21. At the very threshold of an epoch 
which, as He Knew, would be of long continuance, and 
f rought with events and consequences of cosmic significance, 
He impressively taught that "the most high God ruleth in 
the kingdom of men, and that He appointeth over it whom- 
soever He will." It is a lesson long since forgotten by the 
Gentile civilizations. Even we boast of our government that 
it is "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 89 

the name of God does not appear in the Constitution. This, 
doubtless, is better than that monstrous perversion of 
Daniel's doctrine which was called *'the divine right of 
kings," and under which Gentile kings shamelessly subjected 
the people, and especially the Jewish people, to awful 
tyranny, but it is none the less a setting aside of Daniel's 
doctrine. And yet, there have been some in all the ages of 
Gentile supremacy who, taught of God through His prophet 
Daniel, have perceived that the only true philosophy of his- 
tory is to be found, not indeed in the divine right of rulers, 
but in their divine responsibility. Nations are creatures of 
time, not of eternity, and therefore the divine judgments 
fall upon nations now, and are not postponed to eternity. 
Nations have arisen during the times of the Gentiles, have 
come to great power, have abused that power and have 
passed away, or have been swallowed up in other powers. 
Every such national extinction is but another instance of the 
putting forth of the unseen Hand which branded Belshaz- 
zar's wall with the sentence of doom. 



DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 

(Daniel vi: 10-23.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The prayer of Daniel (verses 10, 11). The words, "as 
he did aforetime," are significant. They speak of the power 
of habit. We say much concerning the power of evil habits 
— not enough of the power of good habits. Many a young 
man going from his country home into the temptations of 
city life has been carried through his dangerous first year 
by the inveterate habit of church going. 2. The foolish 
law (verses 12-15). The unchangeableness of the laws of 



90 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the Medes and Persians was but a codification of that wor- 
ship of consistency, which, as DisraeH said, is the ''virtue of 
feeble minds." No one but a fool never changes his mind. 
Wider knowledge, deeper experience, larger vision — these 
constantly change both opinion and conduct. 3. The per- 
mitted peril (verses 16, 17). Over such providences we 
write a wistful '*Why?" Daniel was the best man of his 
time ; God's most faithful servant — why the den of lions for 
him? 4. The delivering God (verses 18-23). ''Many are 
the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord 
delivereth him." 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

It is not easy to say what is most surely central in this 
lesson. Most obviously we have here another striking in- 
stance of that truth which was before our minds when we 
were with Jeremiah in the dungeon, the permitted afflictions 
of the good, and the permitted power of the wicked. Why 
is "truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the 
throne?" It is the problem of Job ; it sorely troubled Asaph 
(Psalm Ixxiii). The mystery of the sufferings of the godly 
is indeed in this lesson, but it is also everywhere in Scripture 
and therefore cannot be distinctively the core truth before us 
to-day. 

I think we shall most surely find it in the king's question 
at daybreak: "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy 
God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee 
from the lions?" Form out of this a phrase, "the God of 
Daniel," and find the heart of the lesson therein. 

The whole Bible, nay, the whole creation, is but a method 
of the self -revelation of God. He is ever seeking manifesta- 
tion, for He knows that the one supreme need of the world 
is really to know God. "This is life eternal, that they might 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 91 

know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou 
hast sent" (John xvii:3). 

Now, among the various means used by the unseen God 
for His self-revelation is His association with certain human 
lives. What does He mean, for example, when He says, "I 
am the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob?" This, 
evidently: *'I am the God who revealed what manner of 
being He is by associating myself with the lives of three 
men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." These men, though 
closely related by blood, were men of diverse characters, and 
circumstances. The God of Abraham is a God who calls 
men out — out of idolatry into true worship; out of small 
things into great things; out of barrenness into marvellous 
fruitfulness. The God of Isaac is the God who does not 
despise negative and commonplace men — for such Isaac 
was — but so deals with them as to pass down and carry out 
the great purposes which had their beginnings in larger 
souls. The God of Jacob is the God who transforms char- 
acter, who takes up a mean trickster, a ''supplanter," and so 
deals with him that at last He makes him an Israel, a "prince 
with God." 

Who, now, is this God of Daniel whom we have before us 
in this lesson? Very obviously He is the God who is able 
to deliver. Surely, in such a world as this — a world in which 
the lions of temptation and of destructive lusts crouch in 
every pathway, a God who was not able to deliver, would be 
a lacking God — a God weak at a vital point. 

A missionary saw a heathen neighbor one morning throw 
his favorite idol to the ground and then proceed to kick it 
out of his compound. When the missionary asked the cause 
of such treatment, the heathen explained that the god had 
no power to deliver him. A powerless god is an object of 
just contempt. If the one living and true God, the God of 



92 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Daniel and of Paul and of all the tested saints in all the ages 
had not shown Himself mighty to deliver His people, no one 
would to-day believe on Him. Our God — the God of Daniel, 
is "able to deliver." 



RETURNING FROM CAPTIVITY. 

(Ezra i: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The proclamation of the King (verses 1-4). 2. The 
response of the Jews (verses 5-11). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

It is right and logical that in arranging a series of Sunday 
school lessons which tells of the captivity of Israel, there 
should, in due order, be a lesson recording the return (in 
part) of Israel from that captivity. But why, in all the 
wealth of historic material concerning that return, these 
particular verses should have been selected, must remain, to 
most Bible students, one of the inscrutable mysteries of the 
lesson committee. But, though infelicitous as a selection, it 
is yet Scripture, and therefore infinitely precious. 

Though not strictly germane to the heart of this lesson, it 
may be well to remind the scholar that the return from the 
captivity was partial, the ten tribes which had formed the 
northern kingdom having never, to this day, been restored. 
Also that the return of the remnant was in three detachments, 
at three different times, and under three different leaders. 
In B. C. 535 a company returned under Zerubabel and laid 
the temple foundations ; B. C. 458 Ezra returns and restores 
the law and ritual ; B. C. 445 Nehemiah led up a company 
and restored the walls, and the civil authority. Our lesson 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 93 

has to do with the first of these. Sheshbazzar was the Per- 
sian name of Zerubabel. 

It is not, therefore, the fact of the restoration which is 
pecuHar to this lesson, nor may we find its heart in the fact. 

Is it not to be found in something out of which the fact 
of the return grew — something which made the return a 
more absolute necessity than a law of nature, or the cosmic 
order? The latter will undergo, as it has undergone, great 
changes, but there is one thing in the universe which never 
changes, which is immutable and inevitable, and that is the 
Word of God. 

Henry Drummond said that the one stable thing in the 
universe was a law of nature — a seeming-wise but really 
foolish saying. For Who is this Nature, personified con- 
tinually in the writings of skeptical "scientists," so-called, 
who makes laws? It is God. And the power to make in- 
volves the power to unmake : "Whose voice then shook the 
earth: but now he hath promised, saying. Yet once more I 
shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, 
Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things which 
are shaken, as of things that are made" (Heb. xii:26, 27), 
among which are these "laws of Nature." It is the Scripture 
"which cannot be broken.^' It is easier for heaven and 
earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." 

Seventy years before the events recorded in this lesson, 
God had said by the prophet Jeremiah: "This whole land 
shall be a desolation, and an astonishment ; and these nations 
shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years" (Jer. xxv : 11). 
"For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accom- 
plished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good 
word toward you, in causing you to return to this place" 
(Jer. xxix: 10). 



94 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

And now the seventy years are accomplished and by a di- 
vine imperative the thing spoken must be done. 

The heart of this lesson then is, generally, the immutability 
of the written Word of God ; and, more specifically, of the 
prophetic word. At no other point is unbelief or doubt so 
little excusable. For already a great number of explicit 
prophecies have been literally fulfilled. And these predic- 
tions were uttered so long before the event — usually centu- 
ries — that no human foresight could have anticipated them ; 
and they were so specific as to time, place and circumstance 
that no accidental combination of circumstances could have 
fulfilled them. When, therefore, we turn to predictions 
whose fulfilment is yet future, we are sure of two things: 
first, the thing spoken will come to pass ; and, secondly, it 
will come to pass, not figuratively or allegorically, but with 
exact literalness. 



REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. 

(Ezra iii: lO-v: 4.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The foundation of praise (verses 10, 11). 2. Ill-timed 
grief (verses 12, 13). 3. The counsel of separation (verses 
1-3). 4. The hired counsellors (verses 4, 5). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Three perils in the face of which all Christian building is 
done, three methods of opposition to all constructive Chris- 
tianity are present in this lesson, and form the heart of it. 

First, the opposition from pessiiuists. It was a poor thing 
to drown the shout of the workers in the noise of the weep- 
ing of "many of the priests and Levites and chief of the 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 95 

fathers" because they had ''seen the first house." There is a 
shallow and unthinking pessimism as there is also a shallow 
and unthinking optimism. Men of the first type, many of 
them, in our day, men of a deep knowledge of the Scriptures 
and who should be mighty for God, are so persuaded of the 
degeneracy of the times, of the wide-spread apostasy from 
sound doctrine, and of the pervading sectarian confusion 
that they discourage all constructive work for Christ. "To 
what end?" they ask, "Since all is confusion, since so few 
give a clear testimony? Why seek to reconstruct a ruin? 
If, indeed, we might hope to reproduce the order, the zeal, 
the doctrinal soundness of the Apostolic church, then would 
we build with you. But, alas ! alas ! that may not be." 

The truth being that there never was an "apostolic church" 
in the sense of a great organization of churches, and all per- 
vaded by holy zeal and biblical accuracy. It is purely a 
figment of the imagination. There were, in apostolic times, 
scattered churches, made up for the most part of slaves and 
of the very poor ; and some of these were zealous and holy 
and well instructed, and some were carnal and mistaught. 

Never since Christ has there been so grand a chance to 
build local churches after the Apostolic mould and faith as 
just now when there is so much confusion and discord. 
There is no real room in Christianity for pessimism. The 
Christian knows that this age ends in apostasy, but he need 
not be an apostate. The very clamor about him of destruc- 
tive criticism, of evolutionism gone mad, of theosophy, Chris- 
tian Science and "new thought" is but a call to him to abide 
faithful. Similarly, the fact that churches have swung so 
far away from the simple primitive order is but a call of God 
to every local church to resume that order. 

Second, the opposition from world-mixture. "Let us build 
with you: for we seek your God," etc. Never was there a 



96 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

time when it was more necessary for the churches of Jesus 
Christ to remember Zerubabel's noble answer: "Ye have 
nothing to do with us, to build an house unto our God." 
To-day the churches of Jesus Christ stand upon every high- 
way with the mendicant's whine of need, and the mendicant's 
outstretched palm. When a new meeting house is to be built 
every devise is resorted to to secure from a religion patroniz- 
ing world as great a share of the cost as possible. No money 
is too ''tainted" to be taken for the Lord's work. Men 
against whom reputable and responsible persons make 
charges of perjury, fraud, greed, deliberate injury of the 
weak and defenseless, are approached for great gifts to so- 
called Christian work. It is a time for the old Bible cry: 
"Come ye out from among them and touch not the unclean 
thing." 

Third, the open opposition of the world. The late Lord 
Salisbury said, at the outbreak of the boxer rebellion, "Mis- 
sionaries are very unpopular persons in the foreign minis- 
tries of all governments." What a confession. There is to- 
day, in the United States Senate, an absolute impossibility 
of securing a vote on the pure food bill. Why? The De- 
partment of Agriculture says because of the influence of dis- 
tillers and manufacturers of injurious foods. Let righteous- 
ness strike a profitable evil, and that evil will find means to 
"frustrate their purpose." 



POWER THROUGH GOD'S SPIRIT. 

(Zech. iv: i-io.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The prophet's vision (verses 1-3). 2. The angelic ex- 
planation (verses 4-6). 4. The exaltation of the headstone 
(verse 7). 5. The comforting promise (verses 8-10). 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 97 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The lesson is full of precious things of God and of Christ, 
but scholar and teacher must choose between teaching the 
lesson of the candlestick, the olive trees and the headstone, 
and teaching the truth embodied in the lesson title, "Power 
through God's Spirit," which is also the truth of the golden 
text: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith 
the Lord." 

It is not meant that the two parts of the lesson are in con- 
flict — far be the thought — but only that in the candlestick 
and the headstone we have two precious types of Christ, 
while the latter part of the lesson the thought is more upon 
the Spirit. 

But this very difficulty suggests that underlying truth 
which is the heart of the lesson — the truth, namely, that 
Christ, the Candlestick and the Head Stone is to be brought 
forth and exalted only through the power of the Spirit. 

So much, in our day, is said and printed concerning the 
Holy Spirit that the mighty word by Zechariah, "not by 
might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord," is 
in danger of becoming a mere cant phrase — a mere platitude 
of modern religious life. We answer, "Of course — who does 
not know that?" but we go on, nevertheless, in methods 
which assume that Christian victories are to be won by 
might and power and by God's Spirit. We forget the ''not 
by," and the ''but by." 

It is no uncharity to say that in Christian work we all de- 
pend to-day chiefly upon three sources of power other than 
the Spirit of God. 

The first of these is organization. To the simple apostolic 

and inspired organization, the local church, we have added 

an infinitude of purely human devices. We have gathered 

numbers of churches, sometimes many thousands of them, 

7 



98 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

into a something which we call a church. Still building, we 
have equipped our "church" with from three to eleven boards 
or societies, and with a multitude of smaller groupings of 
churches according to local contiguity or convenience, and 
each of these groupings has from two to eight officers. 

Invading, then, the local churches themselves, we have 
organized a bewildering system of societies, committees, 
treasurers, chairmen, etc., etc. We have thus sophisticated 
the divine order and model because we believe in all good 
faith that power and efficiency will be thus increased. 

The second source of power other than the Spirit of God 
upon which we chiefly depend ir, intellectual training. We 
have said, with the pagan, ''Knowledge is power." We have 
said, and, through our religious journals are constantly say- 
ing that what we need for greater efficiency is a more highly 
trained ministry; and, by that phrase we mean a ministry 
with a better equipment of learning. We verily believe our 
ministers will have more Christian efficiency — more power 
for God — if we teach them more things drawn, not at all 
from Scripture, nor from centuries of Christian experience, 
but from the latest hypotheses of men of science, the latest 
guesses of psychology, as to what the inner phenomena of 
life are, the latest proposals for the amelioration of the hard 
conditions of the present social order. 

And the third source of power to which we seek with far 
more of faith and persistency than to the Spirit of God, is 
money. We verily do believe that if we had money enough 
we could convert the world. It has been recently gravely 
stated, and in an influential quarter, that we may not in the 
future hope to secure for the foreign field the "best equipped 
men and women" unless we "bravely face the fact" that they 
must be offered as much more money than they can earn at 
home as the perils of climate, discomforts and deprivations 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 99 

of intellectual and social opportunities weigh against the 
choice of the foreign field. 

No sane person undervalues training, but many sane per- 
sons overvalue it as a source of power. Money is, indeed, in 
some sort, absolutely essential to the prosecution of extended 
Christian enterprises — but it is never a source of power. 
Organization is necessary — as witness the organization of 
the primitive Christian life into assemblies — but organization 
is never power. When these, in utter subordination and ab- 
negation, are put into the hands of the Spirit He may and 
will use them for the manifestation of His power. 



ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 

(Esther iv: 10-43.) 
L The Analysis. 

I. Esther's call and her response of faith (verses 10-16). 
2. The prayer of the people, and God's answer (iv: 17; 

v:3)- 

IL The Heart of the Lesson. 

This lesson is so integral, so completely one, that we shall 
best come to understand its most central teaching by consid- 
ering it all. It has been urged against the inspiration and 
canonicity of this Book that the name of Deity does not occur 
in it. Perhaps nothing could better illustrate tlie folly of the 
destructive criticism. Against Israel at this time had gone 
forth the word, lo ammi — "not my people" (Hosea i: 9, 10; 
ii:23). It was not the abrogation of the Abrahamic, Deu- 
teronomic and Davidic covenants (Gen. xii: 1-4; Deut. xxx: 
i-io; 2 Sam. vii: 5-17), for these, it is repeatedly declared, 



100 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

shall never fail ; it was the chastisement of the ancient peo- 
ple by the withdrawal of the divine fellowship. 

But, though withholding Himself from personal commun- 
ion with his people, Jehovah nevertheless worked for them 
behind the screen of His providences. Denied, because of 
their sins, the joy of the felt presence of God, they were 
all the more the objects of His tender love (Hos. xiv: i-6), 
of His ceaseless care. 

How exquisitely in character, therefore, with this period 
in the history of the chosen people is this dealing in Esther. 
God's name is not mentioned, but God's hand is everywhere. 
It is even so through all the present church age. The ''nat- 
ural branches" are ''broken off," but, "beloved for the fa- 
thers' sake," God, whose "gifts and calling are without re- 
pentance," "is able to graff them in again" (Rom. xi) . Mean- 
time, the true philosophy of Gentile world-history is to be 
found in the Divine dealing with the Jew. 

Turning now to the lesson we shall have the heart of it, 
I think, in a certain sequence which gives to the events the 
relation of cause and consequence; and, supremely, in a 
word of Mordecai to Esther. 

That order of events is: the humiliation before God of 
the imperilled Jews; the message to Esther; the response 
of Esther's faith ; the preparation by fasting and prayer ; 
the answer of God in His providential deliverance of His 
people. How easily it might all have been otherwise! The 
threatened Jews might have heaped their wealth at Haman's 
feet to placate his hatred. They might have sought to avert 
the impending doom by corrupting influential courtiers. 
They might have sought safety in flight. But they began by 
getting right with God, and all that followed had the inevita- 
bility of cause and effect. For then God begins to work, and 
their safety was at once assured. 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES loi 

But we must not pass over a word in Mordecai's message 
to the beautiful young Jewess who was to be God's instru- 
ment in the deliverance of her people: "And who knoweth 
whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as 
this?" 

Who, indeed, shall say that the whole past of Esther up 
to the moment when she stood, unbidden, before the king 
had not been ordered in view of the use God meant to 
make of her that day ? For that, she had been born a Jewess 
that she might be bound up with the destinies of that people ; 
for that, she had been dowered with beauty, that she might 
reach the heart of a sensual pagan king through the only 
avenue of access to the heart of such a man — his senses ; for 
that, she had been raised to share that king's throne. 

But if it were so with Esther, there emerges a principle of 
wide application in the interpretation of the divine provi- 
dences. Is not that principle this: that opportunity to do 
good is at once the divine call to do that thing, and the in- 
terpretation of the divine dealing in the past which has at 
last brought the person and the opportunity together? 

What, fundamentally, is the meaning of the crucifixion? 
"Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore- 
knowledge of God." "A lamb without blemish and without 
spot : who verily was foreordained before the foundation of 
the world" (Acts ii : 2^; i Pet. i: 19, 20). How many cen- 
turies it required to bring at last Christ and the cross to- 
gether ! 

So we, in the measure of our opportunity are to find the 
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. For such 
a time — though the service may be a small one — we came to 
the Kingdom. 



102 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

EZRA'S JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. 

(Ezra viii: 21-32.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The right beginning (verses 21, 23). 2. The resolve 
of faith (verse 22). 3. Care about holy things (verses 24- 
30). 4. The care of God. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Surely the heart of this lesson is not far to seek. Ezra 
had bravely borne a clear testimony to the power and right- 
eousness of the God of Israel, and now he was not minded 
to stultify that testimony by seeking the aid of the world in 
a matter which concerned God. In other words, he was de- 
termined to be consistent. Having testified to the power of 
God, he felt bound to rest his case on that power. Doubtless 
many, possibly the king himself, who had heard Ezra's clear 
testimony, sneered: "We shall soon see this servant of so 
great a God asking for a military escort." 

There is a true consistency, and a foolish consistency, as 
we have often remarked in these papers. The latter is illus- 
trated by the laws of the Medes and Persians "which change 
not." Times change, circumstances change, laws must 
change. So must opinions, convictions even. To all grow- 
ing natures there comes a larger vision, a new sense of the 
relations of things, new knowledge, deeper receptivity, and 
with these change is inevitable. In this sense is Johnson's 
famous dictum, "Consistency is the virtue of fools," to be 
taken. 

But there are unchangeable things. God never changes. 
Jesus Christ is "the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever." 
And the truth of God never changes. It is as immutable as 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 103 

God Himself. The revealed will of God never changes: 
"the Scripture cannot be broken" (John x: 35). 

It follows that faith establishes certain relationships with 
God which do not change. Our apprehension of the wonder 
and privilege of our position as sons of God may grow 
broader and deeper, but we are never any more really sons 
of God than in the moment when we first believed in Christ, 
nor can we ever be any less than sons of God. 

In the same way it is true that the world of unsaved hu- 
man beings does not change. Individuals out of the world 
believe and pass into the family of God by the new birth. 
When they do that, they change, but the world of unsaved 
humanity is left unchanged. 

The customs and manners of the world change. The 
world for nineteen hundred years has been growing more 
cultured, agreeable and law abiding. It is a far pleasanter 
place to live in than formerly. The modern city is vile 
enough, but one would rather live in New York than in the 
Rome of the first century, or the Paris or London of 
the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. The ethic of Christ, 
the presence in the world of Christianity, have made the 
change. 

And this change is very misleading. Because the world 
is gentler in its normal states than formerly, we say it is 
more Christian. But the world is just the sum of the indi- 
viduals at any one time on the earth, and an individual is not 
a Christian so long as he does not, by a definite act of faith, 
receive Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. He may take on 
some ways customary among Christians, as church going and 
contribution giving, but that no more makes him a Christian 
than a stage crown makes an actor a king, or burnt cork 
makes a white man a negro. 

So of the world. It is the unchanged enemy of Jesus 



104 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Christ, the unrepentant rebel against God. The greed of its 
''captains of industry" is precisely the greed of the brutal 
robber barons of five hundred years ago. Its essential cru- 
elty in condemning to painful deaths 10,000 industrious rail- 
way employees every year to save the expenditure of a few 
millions in preventive devices, is precisely the cruelty of 
Roman nobles witnessing the deaths of the arena. The only 
fundamental difference is that the railway barons do not like 
to see the mangled victims of their dividend producing greed. 
Now the application of Ezra's counsel of consistency is 
evident. The Church testifies to the world that belief in 
Jesus Christ brings one into the family of the God of all 
the universe, the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills, of 
all the treasures of earth, that this Father has left His chil- 
dren in the world to bring the world to His riches. And the 
church stands a mendicant at every rich man's door ! 



NEHEMIAH'S PRAYER. 

(Neh. i: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The evil estate of God's heritage (verses 1-3). 2. The 
prayer of a man who cared (verses 4-11). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Two men, during the 70 years' captivity, were unceasing 
remembrances of the Lord in behalf of Israel — Nehemiah 
and Daniel (Dan. ix: 1-19). Their recorded prayers are 
strikingly alike, and each of them is a preciously complete 
lesson on prayer. Aside from the touching application to 
the Jewish people, I cannot but think the permanent value 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 105 

of this lesson lies just there — it is a lesson in the divine art 
of prayer. Let us so consider it. 

1. The first fact about this great prayer which arrests at- 
tention is that it was intercessory. Most of the prayers pre- 
served for us in Scripture are intercessory. Doubtless the 
believer is to pray concerning his own life and its needs. 
Doubtless, though, the divine intent is that such prayers 
should by no means constitute the bulk of our praying. The 
New Testament believer is a priest ( i Pet. ii : 5-9 ; Rev. i : 
5, 6), and "every priest" is "ordained for men in things per- 
taining to God." He must 'have compassion on the ignorant, 
and on them that are out of the way" (Heb. v: i, 2). And 
the will of God is that His New Testament believer-priests 
shall offer "supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving 
of thanks," "for all men." 

What an interceding believer-priest Paul was! His 
Epistles are fragrant with the breath of unselfish prayer, 
often with tears, and often "for as many as had not seen his 
face in the flesh." 

2. Then, secondly, Nehemiah was moved to tears and fast- 
ing and prayers for Israel because they were "the children 
of Israel, Thy servants." It was something that touched the 
heart and the honor of God that the walls of Jerusalem 
should be broken down and the gates thereof burned with 
fire. Jerusalem was "the city of the great King," the "place 
which the Lord God had chosen." It was His people who 
had transgressed. 

Every wholly right prayer puts God's honor first. "Our 
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy 
Kingdom come. Thy will be done." 

3. Thirdly, it was a prayer which confessed the whole 
failure and need. There was no silly optimism in Nehe- 



io6 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

miah's prayer. "Both I and my father's house have sinned. 
We have dealt very corruptly against thee." 

Just at that time Nehemiah was in a place of great inti- 
macy and trust at court. All persecution of the Jews had 
ceased. They had grown rich and influential. A shallow 
optimism would have pointed — as perhaps many did point — 
to the prosperity in a temporal sense of the Jews as reason 
for gratulation and self-complacency. That is the prevailing 
note in our day. But the spiritually minded, like Nehemiah, 
knew that Israel had shamefully failed in her distinctive mis- 
sion in the world, which was to be a witness to the unity of 
God in the midst of universal idolatry (Deut. vi: 4, with Isa. 
xliii: 10-12), and to illustrate to the nations the blessedness 
of serving the true God (Deut. xxxiii : 26-29 ; i Chr. xvii: 
20, 21; Psa. cxliv: 15). In like manner the Church, to 
which was committed one, and but one, mission — to evan- 
gelize the world (Matt, xxviii : 18-20 ; Acts i : 8) — has never 
in any generation told the story to one-third of the human 
family, and has turned aside to the production of the mere 
by-products of Christianity — schools, hospitals, and orphan- 
ages. The Church will see a red revival when Daniels and 
Nehemiahs are moved to weep and confess her sin and 
failure. 

4. Fourth, Nehemiah acknowledged the condition of Israel 
and Jerusalem to be due to the chastening hand of the Lord, 
according to His solemn warning in the Deuteronomic cove- 
nant (Deut. XXX : i-io). It was no "misfortune" which had 
"happened" to Israel. The holy nation was captive in a 
strange land because God was chastising it. 

Just such a word is given to the believer. "If we would 
judge ourselves we should not be judged ; but when we are 
judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be 
condemned with the world" (i Cor. xi:3i, 32). 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 107 

5. And, lastly, the very failure and sin of Israel but drove 
Nehemiah to the promises. The Deuteronomic covenant had 
more than warnings of disaster and of the chastening hand 
of God, and the suppliant cup-bearer fell back upon the 
promises of that covenant with unquestioning faith. 

May we of the Church age, sons of the Father, remember 
as we see and mourn the failure of the Church His gracious 
promise: "If we confess our sins. He is faithful and just 
to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness." 



New Testament Studies 



THE BOYHOOD OF CHRIST. 

(Luke 11:40-52.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The True Humanity of Jesus (verses 40, 51, 52). — It Is 
of the utmost importance to be clear at this point. Error as 
to the Person of Christ is so fundamental that it is sure to 
invalidate, in the end, every doctrine of the Gospel. In one 
respect only did the humanity of Jesus differ from that of 
all men — He was sinless both as to nature and act. In every 
other respect He was one of us, and one with us. 

2. The Jewish Nurture of Jesus (verses 41, 42.) — Our 
Lord was "made under the law" (Gal. iv:4), and the inci- 
dent recorded in this lesson shows how carefully He was 
brought up in all its ordinances. It should be remembered 
that Jesus Christ was, as to His earth life, "a minister of 
the circumcision," whose ministry, therefore, related to the 
confirmation of ''the promises unto the fathers" (Rom. xv: 
8) ; and that the proclamation of mercy to the Gentiles did 
not begin till after His ascension and the descent of the 
Spirit at Pentecost. Failure to see the legal and Jewish ele- 
ment in our Lord's teaching leads to the effort to bring tliat 
teaching over literally into the church — a thing wholly for- 
eign to the Divine purpose. 

3. The Danger of Losing the Fellowship of Jesus (verses 
44-48). — See below. 

4. The Full Divine Self -consciousness of Jesus (verses 
47, 49.) — Thirty years ago Dale of Birmingham, speaking 
upon the earlier phase of the higher criticism which seemed 

m 



112 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

comparatively harmless, predicted that within thirty years 
the storm would ''gather over one sacred head !" That time 
has come. It is evident that Satan's work of undermining 
the authority of Scripture was but preliminary to an assault 
upon the deity of Jesus Christ. How important, then, this 
inspired testimony to the fact that even at the age of twelve 
Jesus was in the full consciousness of His divine sonship. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The present lesson may be said to have two centres — one 
doctrinal, the other practical. The doctrinal heart of the 
lesson concerns the Person of Christ. The higher criticism 
finds itself confronted at every step by the testimony of 
Christ concerning the inspiration and authority of the Old 
Testament. It is incontestable that He received the Holy 
Scriptures as of final authority, not only in the sphere of 
revelation of truth, but also as absolutely inerrant in every 
statement of fact. 

But if Jesus Christ spoke as a first hand witness, with the 
authority of One who, in His eternal sonship, saw every 
word of the Old Testament written, then His testimony 
makes an end of the higher criticism. It became necessary, 
therefore, for the critics to impugn the divine knowledge of 
the Lord Jesus, and this they do by inventing what is called 
the kenotic theory, i. e., the theory that in becoming flesh 
the eternal Son laid aside His divine knowledge and con- 
sciousness, and came under purely human limitations. The 
full answer to that dishonoring notion cannot be given here, 
but our lesson (verses 47, 49) is of itself a sufficient refuta- 
tion. "As human He grew; as divine He knew," said 
Luther. 

The practical heart of the lesson is most precious. It lies 
in the phrase: "Supposing Him to be in the company." 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 113 

As the Nazareth party, happy in the sacred events o£ the 
week, started upon the return journey, Mary assumed that 
her wonderful and holy Son was somewhere in the company, 
but when the evening halt came she learned the bitter lesson 
which millions of Christians have also had to learn in dis- 
tress and sorrow, that it is most dangerous to take the fel- 
lowship of the Son of God by way of easy assumption. 

How many of us, happy in yesterday's blessings, have gone 
a day's journey "supposing Him to have been in the com- 
pany," only to learn at night that we have been occupied 
with past experiences, and not with Himself. Two links 
unite us to Jesus, the link of life, which, thank God, can 
never be broken ; and the link of fellowship, which may be 
interrupted by a heedless walk. 



THE PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

(Matt, iii: 1-12.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The Message and the Mission of John (verses 1-3, 10, 
12). — The position of John the Baptist with reference to 
Christ is simply defined by himself ; he was "the friend of 
the Bridegroom" (John iii: 29), as Abraham was "the friend 
of God" (James iii: 22). He was the last and greatest 
(Matt, xi: 9, 10) of the Old Testament prophets, and to him 
was given the blessedness of seeing the Bridegroom and of 
hearing His voice. But John the Baptist's ministry was pre- 
paratory to the kingdom, not the church ; nor was his mes- 
sage, "repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," a 
Gospel message. There is no preparatory message for this 
Gospel age. The Gospel says : "Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ and thou shalt be saved" (Acts xvi: 31). 



114 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

2. The Test of True Repentcmce (verse 8). — Repentance 
is a change of mind about Christ, but true repentance, Hke 
true faith, is an energizing principle — it bears fruit (Matt. 
xxi: 28-31). 

3. The Two Classes in Especial Peril (verse 9). — The 
appearance amongst those who sought baptism at the hands 
of John of Pharisees and Sadducees aroused in John **the 
spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke i: 17). The Sadducees 
were the rationalists and higher critics of that day Matt, 
xxi: 23-29), and the Pharisees the strict legalists. In many 
things they were far apart, and, upon a superficial view, 
seemed antagonistic, but the Spirit pierced down to their 
essential unity; they both said, "We have Abraham to our 
father." They were quite too good by natural descent to be 
lost. That was their peculiar peril — false security, self- 
satisfaction. It is the peril of millions to-day. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

But the heart of this lesson must be found in the tenth 
verse : "Now is the ax laid into the root of the trees." The 
long trail of human nature is over. Beginning with what the 
infidel evolutionist, Herbert Spencer, declares to be a scien- 
tific definition of heaven, "a perfect being in a perfect en- 
vironment," man, at the first temptation, fell into sin. Tested 
thereafter under natural conscience, under human govern- 
ment, under covenant and promise, and finally under law, 
human nature was shown to be incurably evil. Neither the 
goodness nor the severity of God availed to produce fruit 
for God from that tree (Isa. i: 2-6, v: 1-7; Rom. iii: 9-18). 

The current theological notion that man is now under 
probation is wholly misleading and untrue. Man is under 
condemnation (John iii: 18, 19), and spiritually dead in 
trespasses and sins (Eph. ii:i, 5). The unbeliever is in 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 115 

precisely the condition of a condemned criminal, execution 
of whose sentence is indefinitely deferred. Before him is, 
in any event, no matter what he may do, but one prospect — 
he must die. But, blessed be God, he may choose the manner 
of his death. He may believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and 
then he dies in and with Christ (Rom. vi:2-6; Gal. ii: 19, 
20), or he may go on in unbelief and find his part in the 
"lake of fire which is the second death" — a death which is not 
the extinction of being, but an endless and never consum- 
mated dying. But in any event, God, nineteen hundred years 
ago, ceased to expect anything from human nature. The old 
tree is hewn down. 



THE BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION. 

(Matt, iii: 13-iv: 11.) 
I. The Analysis. 

The lesson is in four divisions: — 

1. Jesus' Baptism by John (iii: 13-15). — The fulfilling of 
ail righteousness by the sinless One, who, for Himself, 
needed no baptism of repentance, but who, in the very initial 
step in His public ministry, acts vicariously in behalf of 
sinners who deeply need that baptism. This is precisely the 
doctrine of Col. ii : 12, which is not to be confused with Rom. 
vi : 4, 5. Doubtless, also, Christ's baptism in Jordan, the 
river of judgment, was typical of His coming death (Luke 
xii:3o). Reject the notion often taught that this baptism 
was a priestly washing. Jesus Christ's high priestly work 
did not begin "on the earth" (Heb. viii:4), but when He 
was "lifted up from the earth" (John xii: 32), and "offered 
Himself without spot to God" (Heb. ix: 14) on the cross. 

2. Jesus' Baptism by the Holy Spirit (iii: 16, 17). — From 



ii6 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

this moment He becomes the Christ, which means the 
Anointed, the equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah. This 
anointing is unto His three-fold office of Prophet, Priest 
and King. He immediately enters upon His prophetic minis- 
try; His priestly ministry began on the cross; His kingly 
work will begin at His appearing. The scene is also a com- 
plete manifestation of the Trinity. 

3. Jesus Christ's Temptation (iv: i-io). — The tempter is 
Satan himself. It is the testing of the "last Adam,'' the 
"second man" (i Cor. xv:45, 47)- 'The appeal was to His 
three-fold being — body, "command that these stones be made 
bread" ; soul, "cast thyself down" ; spirit, "all these things 
will I give thee." In each the core of the appeal was to 
Jesus Christ as man, to act from Himself, in independence 
of the Father. It should be noted that the quotations used 
are from Deuteronomy — the book especially singled out by 
the higher critics as a late forgery. Imagine two beings like 
the Son of God and Lucifer, both of whom knew the facts, 
seriously quoting from a writing that both knew to be 
spurious ! 

4. The Angelic Ministry of Jesus (iv: 11). — It is impor- 
tant to note here that angels exercise a ministry of physical 
restoration and renewal (Luke xxii:43; ^f- i Kings xix: 

5-8). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The central, vital truth of this lesson is not far to seek. 
Each of these first temptations of our Lord had one object — 
to seduce Him from the pathway marked out for Him as 
the Son of God on a mission to this world. The first would 
have taken Him from His appointed state of dependence on 
the Father for personal need. The second would have led 
Him beyond faith into a fanatical and presumptuous act for 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 117 

which He had no word of Scripture, though Satan endeav- 
ored to persuade Him that He had. Here lies one of our 
subtlest dangers. 

Every excess of fanatacism grounds itself on some misap- 
plied passage of Scripture. Kingdom promises are put be- 
fore believers who are members of Christ's body, not subjects 
of His millennial kingdom. Satan can quote Scripture, but 
Satan never applies it correctly. 

The third temptation was still addressed to the one object — 
to get our Lord out of His appointed path. Nothing is more 
certain than that the kingdoms of this world are to become 
''the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ" (2 Sam. vii: 
8-14; Psa. ii; Jer. xxiii:5-8; Isa. ix:6, 7; Luke i 130-33; 
Acts XV : 14-17), but between the Son of man as He stood 
that day in the wilderness of the temptation, and the throne 
of His father David, lay the cross of Calvary. Every one 
of these temptations come to fellow-sons and co-heirs with 
Jesus. The pathway of faith lies through testings which 
appeal to bodily needs ; to fanaticism instead of faith, and to 
the avoidance of that suffering which for us, too, lies be- 
tween conversion and the crown (Rom. viii: 17). 



REJECTED AT NAZARETH. 

(Luke iv: 16-30.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The ''Custom" of Jesus (verse 16). — It is only a word, 
but what a wealth of revelation it contains. "As His cus- 
tom was." It suggests the profoundly religious life of our 
Lord during the long years of silence at Nazareth. The 
word "religious" is used advisedly. Israel had a religion to 
practice (Gal. i: 13) ; Christians have a life to outlive (Gal. 



ii8 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ii: 20) — a very different thing. It suggests, too, the exceed- 
ing value of right habits (cf. Dan. vi: 10). 

2. The Fulfilled Prophecy (verses 17-21). Here is a 
wonderful illustration of the minute accuracy of that verbally 
inspired Word of God, so impiously assailed by modern 
critics. The passage quoted by our Lord is found in Isaiah 
Ixi: I, 2, reference to which will show that our Lord sus- 
pended the reading at a comma, and in the middle of a 
sentence: *'to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" — 
"and he closed the book * * * and began to say unto 
them, This day has this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears. 
The conclusion of the sentence is, "and the day of vengeance 
of our God." But that day had not come then, nor has it yet 
come. It will be the baptism with fire (Matt, iii: 11) at His 
second coming. 

3. The Rejection of Jesus (verse 22). — Men foolishly 
fancy that if they could see our Lord as in the days of His 
humiliation they would instantly believe. Ah, no. "If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded though one rose from the dead" (Luke xvi:3i). 

4. Jesus Rejecting the Rejecters (verses 23-27). — This is 
the invariable order (Matt, xi: 19-24). The rejection may 
be cast in a polite form (Luke xiv: 16-24), or a contemptu- 
ous one (Matt. xxii:2-7), but the result is the same — the 
rejecter of Jesus will find himself rejected at last. Not even 
the cloak of profession will avail (Matt, xxv: 10-12, 24-30). 

5. Jesus, Rejected by Israel, Will Turn to the Gentiles 
(verses 25-27). — This foreview was wonderfully fulfilled in 
the Apostolic age, and since (Acts xviii:6; xxviii : 25-28; 
xv:i4). 

6. The Wrath of the Rejecters (verses 28, 29). — Deep in 
the heart of every rejecter of the Lord Jesus is black hatred 
of Him, and of His will. The world of unbelief would tear 



NEW TESTAMENT Sl'UDIES 119 

God from His throne if it were possible. Think what a 
message of love and of helpfulness had been given from the 
lips of Christ that day. What a revelation of the deep evil 
of the natural heart is involved in the hatred of perfect grace ! 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

If the underlying philosophy of the moral influence theory 
of the atonement were true, Jesus would have won His first 
mighty victory that day in Nazareth; for He was in the 
company that knew Him best. For nineteen years that small 
community had been in contact with the blameless and holy 
life of our Lord. Every soul in Nazareth would have some 
story of His loving helpfulness; every soul had felt the 
sweetness and power of His nature. One would say that 
here of all places He would be surest to win converts. 

But it was not so. They wondered at His gracious words, 
but when He came to press His messianic claims they drew 
back. "Is not this Joseph's son?" And He made them see 
that He understood their thoughts. He was a Prophet in 
His own country, and could do mighty works there because 
of their unbelief. Unbelief — that stubborn barrier against 
which even divine power beats in vain. Mysterious limita- 
tion upon almightiness ! With a breath He could have 
blotted them out of existence, but He "could do no mighty 
work" in the face of their unbelief. With unbelief alone 
millions are staying the grace of God which seeks to save 
them. 

But it is only the grace of God which can be thrust back 
by unbelief. When again our Lord shall call for the roll of 
the prophet Isaiah, and begin to read at the place where He 
stopped that day in Nazareth, He will say: "And the day 
of vengeance of our God," and then unbelief will not stay 
His hand. 



120 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

CALLING FOUR DISCIPLES. 

(Luke v: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Preaching from Simon's Boat (verses 1-3). — Our 
Lord had returned from Nazareth to Capernaum, and was 
preaching in GaHlee. We know from Matthew and Mark 
the burden of His preaching. It was the Gospel of the king- 
dom, not the Gospel of God's grace (Matt, iv: 17) : **Repent, 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" {cf. Matt, x: 5-7). 
The King had come and was offering the kingdom (2 Sam. 
vii : 12-16 ; Isa. i : 1-3 ; Jer. xxiii : 3-8 ; Ezk. xxxvii : 21, 25 ; 
Luke i: 31-33), not the church. 

2. The Difference Between Self-Directed and Christ- 
Directed Work (verses 4-7). — Here is a beautiful lesson in 
service. Mark the contrast : ''Master, we have toiled all the 
night, and have taken nothing" — ''and when they had this 
done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes." If there 
was anything these men knew all about it was fishing. It 
was their trade. And, moreover, they knew all about that 
lake, and all about the habits of the fish in that lake. Like a 
highly trained ministry who have added, besides, experience 
to training, and who still catch no souls; and who, like 
Simon, James and John, must learn that all their training 
and experience is nothing unless directed by the Word of 
God. "At thy word I will let down the net." 

3. The Strange Prayer of Peter (verse 8). — Why should 
a convicted sinner run away from God? Because every 
revelation of divine power brings with it the thought of judg- 
ment. It is impossible for the natural man who is thor- 
oughly convicted of sin to think of God as merciful. Self- 
satisfied, self-righteous man, thinks with complacency of 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 121 

God. He is sure that God approves him. But let a due 
sense of quiet come to him, and fear comes with it. 

4. The New Fishing (verses 10, 11). — Mark renders 
(i: 17) ''Come ye after me and I will make you to become 
fishers of men." The Lord said both things: "Come ye 
after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 
Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men." 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Obviously we are to find the heart of this lesson in that 
circumstance toward which the lesson tends, and in which 
it terminates : the Gospel method of using men to catch men 
for salvation. If we press the terms of our Lord's call we 
shall find them full of precious instruction in soul winning. 
Three kinds of fishing are mentioned in Scripture — the drag 
net (Matt, xiii: 47), the casting or hand net, and the angle. 
The first suggests great revival meetings where, indeed, after 
results often prove that the net ''gathered of every kind," 
good and bad. The sifting at the end of the age will reject 
very many whose names, in time of religious excitement, are 
put upon church membership rolls. Still, we should thank 
God that many ''good" fish also get into the drag net. 

The casting or hand net suggests the work of preaching 
the Gospel in a quieter way, and to few rather than to great 
crowds. The great majority of Christian preachers have not 
the gifts for gathering multitudes, though they may stand 
by the great sea of humanity and faithfully make repeated 
casts. Such work was done by a poor Wesleyan preacher 
the day that Charles Spurgeon was saved. That was a great 
catch out of a small audience. Let no fisher of men despise 
the opportunity of preaching to a mere handful. Many such 
may read these words who are disheartened by scant success. 



122 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Courage, brother! there is joy in heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth. 

Then there is the angle, which catches but one fish at a 
time. Those who cannot use the great drag net, nor even 
the hand net, may at least patiently angle for one fish. But 
this, too, requires skill and care. Be sure the bait is the true 
Gospel. Be willing to take infinite pains, and to have long 
patience. Remember, too, the word of the little country lad 
to the unsuccessful city angler: "You show yourself too 
much, sir." 



A SABBATH IN CAPERNAUM. 

(Mark i: 21-34.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Authority of Christ's Teaching (verses 21, 22). 
— A scribe was a mere preserver of traditional interpreta- 
tions, like a modern commentator. His teaching had, there- 
fore, only the authority of tradition. The postulate was : 
This is true because all the great rabbis from Ezra down 
agree that so it is. But Jesus taught with original, underived, 
divine authority (cf. Matt. V., verses 21, 22). 

2. The Power of Christ's Word (verses 23-28, 32-34). — 
The distinction between the work of Christ in casting out 
demons and that of His disciples was that He wrought by 
His inherent divine power — they, by the power of His name 
(Acts xvi: 18). 

3. The Power of Christ's Hand (verses 30, 31). — The 
healing of Simon's wife's mother was another manifestation 
of divine power which is of special interest by the method 
adopted. The extended hand of our Lord may have been a 
crutch to the weak faith of the sufferer. It was the method 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 123 

imitated by Peter (Acts iii:7) and is full of suggestion to 
Christian workers. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The divine and therefore absolute authority and power 
of Jesus Christ are the outstanding truths of this lesson. 
Never was a lesson more timely, for the undertone of mod- 
ern religious thought is a subtle questioning of the authority 
of Christ's teaching and the power of Christ's word. The 
ethical beauty of His teaching is still loudly praised, but 
only one who is in close contact with current theology can 
appreciate the alarming extent to which the sovereign 
power of Christ is covertly questioned. 

Three modern tendencies combine to effect this evil result. 
The first and most influential is incidental to the prevalency 
of the evolutionary hypothesis. Still a mere working theory 
with real scientists, the swarm of echomen, who deal with 
science at second hand, and who fill professorships in schools 
and colleges, teach evolution as a certainty of science. The 
result is that men have come to think of God as a mere re- 
mote First Cause who is powerless, or at least indisposed to 
interfere with the incredibly slow processes of evolution. 
Such a Christ cannot cast out demons by His Word, nor re- 
buke fevers by the touch of His hand. 

The second of the causes operating to eliminate faith in 
Christ as authoritative is the low estimate everywhere now 
placed upon His Person. Much teaching on that vital sub- 
ject is indistinguishable from Unitarianism, and even in 
quarters where the Trinity is still held to be true, it is said, 
as stated before, that the Son of God, in His incarnation, 
laid aside divine power and knowledge. 

The third agency at work to destroy practical faith in 
Christ's authority and power is the widespread present 



124 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

teaching concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures. In 
such pubHcations as the ''Outlook," and such books as Glad- 
den's "Who Wrote the Bible," the "Temple Bible," and 
"Messages of the Bible," the higher criticism is popularized 
and brought level to the comprehension of the average 
reader. The result is that the authority and power of Christ 
as working forces in the life that now is are increasingly 
displaced from the sphere of faith. 



CHRIST FORGIVES SINS. 

(Mark ii: 1-12.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. A Lesson in Christian Service (verses 3-5). — The four 
men who brought the palsied man to Jesus had great and 
necessary qualities for effective service. They could work 
together in harmony; each was willing to bear his share of 
the burden; they were moved by loving sympathy for the 
unfortunate man ; they were willing to take great pains to 
accomplish his cure, and they had unquestioning faith in the 
power and willingness of Jesus to heal. 

2. A Lesson in Cause and Effect (verses 5-12). — Jesus 
looked back of the palsy to its cause, sin (Comp. John v : 14). 
All disease, all death, is but a result of sin. Not, it should 
be needless to say, necessarily of the personal sin of the suf- 
ferer. Babes are born in an inheritance of sin and sin's con- 
sequences (Psa. li:5; Rom. v: 12-14; John ix:i-3). So 
our Lord deals first with the sin. 

3. A Lesson in the Primary Use of Miracle (verses 9-1 1.) 
— The primary use of miracle is not beneficent, but eviden- 
tial. It required nothing less than divine authority to heal 
the palsied man ; it required nothing more than the divine 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 125 

authority of Him who was to expiate human guilt, to forgive 
that guilt. Every dispensation is ushered in by miracle, be- 
cause miracle is the divine method of authentication. 

4. A Lesson in the Secondary Use of Miracle (verses 
II, 12). — Though the divine power manifested in miracle 
is primarily for the authentication of a message, yet the wis- 
dom and love of God so orders the miracle that it is benefi- 
cent. True miracle is never spectacular, but always con- 
nected in some way with a present need. It is not merely 
an exhibition of power, but an exhibition of power in the 
doing of some actual good. "Lying wonders" always break 
down at this point. The revelations of demons in spiritism 
are always foolish and useless. The false prophet will do 
"wonders," but of a purely dramatic kind (Rev. xiii: 15). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The power of faith is, from the human side, the heart of 
this lesson. Here, as ever, faith is shown in its two great 
uses. It inspires to effort in divine as in human things, and 
it furnishes the means by which divine power may link itself 
with human need. 

It inspires to effort. Doubt never brought a palsied man 
to Christ, even though a roof must be broken up to accom- 
plish it. Doubt, indeed, never effects any good thing. 
Doubt, unbelief, disbelief and misbelief all belong to Satan's 
kingdom, and are the offspring of the father of lies. They 
enfeeble and discourage. Even in the affairs of men all 
great things are wrought by men who believe. Cyrus W. 
Field believed that an electric current could be sent under 
the Atlantic through a wire cable. At first no one else be- 
lieved, but faith is contagious ; it invariably gathers to itself 
strong, aggressive souls. So others came to believe, and now, 
under every sea, nation talks to nation. Probably the effort 



126 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

which brought the palsied man to Christ was born first in 
the faith of one of this immortal four. Probably this saving 
enterprise began with one convinced and believing man. At 
any rate, it commonly is so. When Paul, on the corn ship 
of Alexandria, stood forth after long abstinence, the one 
man of faith on that ship, it was he, the Jew prisoner, who 
instantly became the real commander. He had the word of 
the Lord that not a soul aboard should perish, though the 
ship must, and his faith made him supreme. And how his 
faith inspired them all to work ! No, faith, not doubt, is the 
mother of effort. Among all the shallow sayings of Henry 
Drummond none was shallower than his statement that all 
advancement had its origin in a doubt. Apparently he was 
unable to distinguish between a doubt and a question. The 
longing to know is of God, as is also faith to believe that 
more knowledge may be had by patient and noble effort, but 
a doubt is a poor, negative, devil-born thing, infertile and 
apathetic. 

And then faith links man and his needs with God and His 
power. It is the only capacity godward left of sin in the 
natural man — God's last unsquandered gift. By it, if he will 
(John v: 40), he may return to God. And faith in the saint 
is still the bridge over which heaven's fulness comes into his 
life. Absolutely all things are possible to faith, absolutely 
nothing is possible to unbelief. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 127 

CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

(Matt, xii: 1-13.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. A Dispensational Lesson (verses 1-4). — Always ob- 
serve the time-notes in Scripture. "In that day" is a phrase 
which holds the key to Old Testament Prophecy. The 
phrase "at that time" marks the turning points in the life 
of Christ. In Matt, xi : 16-24 the rejected Christ turns Re- 
jecter. The cities where the mightiest works had been 
wrought had not repented. For them, henceforth, probation 
was ended. "The judgment" (xi : 22-24) is now their one 
horizon. "At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day 
through the corn." His disciples unquestionably violated the 
Sabbath (Numbers xv: 32-36) and Jesus justified them by 
the example of David and his men in the time of his rejec- 
tion by Israel. The Son of David took His right place 
typically as the unacknowledged King of Israel. 

2. The One Greater them Temple and Ritual (verses 5-8). 
— See below. 

3. How Formal Religion Hardens the Heart (verses 9- 
13). — ^AU history, biblical and secular, bears witness that no 
influence known to man so hardens the heart as religious 
formalism. The inveterate hatred which Jesus encountered 
was the hatred of the most religious men of His time. It 
was the hatred of priests and scribes that hounded the Son 
of God to the cross. The crudest persecutions known to 
history have been incited and carried through by formal reli- 
gionists. 

4. The Splendid Courage of Jesus (verses 1-13). — None 
knew so well as He that a blow struck at the current Jewish 
notion of the peculiar sanctity of the temple and the Sab- 



128 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

bath would create a fatal and final breach with Judaism. 
None knew so well as He that beyond that Sabbath eating 
of corn, and healing in the synagogue, lay the cross — yet 
Jesus unhesitatingly struck the fatal blow. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

All that Jesus did on that eventful Sabbath day was but 
the illustration of His two great sayings: "In this place is 
one greater than the temple" : "For the Son of man is Lord 
even of the Sabbath day." The Revision omits "even" and 
"day"— "The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath." This 
is the true form, simpler, grander than that of the author- 
ized version. Apparently the Protestant translators drew 
back from the more austere declaration. For Protestantism 
is Galatianized to the core, and has never escaped from a 
scarcely modified Judaism concerning the Sabbath. To this 
day it is legality's most sensitive spot. Great denominations 
will bear with the higher criticism more patiently than with 
the truth concerning the Sabbath. 

First of all, it is remarkable that, even in His strictly Jew- 
ish ministry (Rom. xv: 8; Matt, x: 5, 6; xv: 24), our Lord 
never repeated the seventh day commandment. Secondly, 
as Lord of the Sabbath, He cleared that Jewish institution 
from an unbiblical strictness; declaring that the Sabbath 
was made for man ; i. e., to serve man, not to impose a yoke 
of bondage upon man — and teaching that it was "lawful" 
to do good on the Sabbath day. Thirdly, He knew that 
through the entire dispensation which would begin from Pen- 
tecost, Christians would observe a wholly diflferent day, 
namely, the first and not the seventh day. Fourthly, He 
Plimself set the pattern of first day observance by what He 
did and said on the first of the first days, that of His resur- 
rection. It was not a day of enforced rest, but of holy 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 129 

activity. Rising from the dead He revealed Himself to the 
sorrowing Magdalene; sent a message of wonderful import 
to His disciples ; held a secret interview with Peter ; walked 
to Emmaus expounding the Scriptures ; appeared to the as- 
sembled disciples, and imparted to them the Holy Spirit, 
The Sabbath belonged to the dispensation of law, was a day 
of enforced rest, and guarded by terrible legal sanctions. 
The first day belongs to the dispensation of grace, is a day 
of Christian activity, and finds its sanctions in the renewed 
hearts of Christ's redeemed ones. 

No greater anomaly can well be imagined than that which 
is expressed in the phrase "Christian Sabbath." Its precise 
equivalent would be ''legal grace." The Sabbath had its 
great and honored place in the national life of Israel; will 
again have its great place in the millennial earth ; and is to 
the Christian a precious ''shadow" (Col. ii : 16, 17) of that 
rest of God (Heb. iv : 3, 4) which he finds in Christ and His 
finished work. 



HEARERS AND DOERS OF THE WORD. 

(Matt, vii: 21-29.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Testing of Profession (verses 21-23). — See below, 
"The Heart of the Lesson." 

2. The Right Foundation (verses 23-25.) — Two points 
must be observed here, (i) it is not what the wise man 
builds, but where he builds which marks him a saved man 
(i Cor. iii: 10-15). The "rock" is Christ (i Cor. x: 4), and 
the man who builds thereon is neither a professor ("Lord, 
Lord"), nor a mere hearer (Hebrews iv:2), nor a tireless 
worker (verse 22), but a believer (John vi: 28, 29). 



130 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

3. The Wrong Foundation (verses 26-28). — Conversely, 
the sandy foundation man is a hearer who may indeed 
prophesy, cast out demons, and do many wonderful works; 
but who fails to "work the works of God" (John vi : 28, 29). 
In a word, the right foundation is Christ received by faith ; 
the wrong foundation is, knowledge without the obedience 
of faith. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Evidently, the heart of things here is the solemn fact that 
God accepts from no man the "Lord, Lord" of mere pro- 
fession. No one is in so much danger as the professor who 
is not a possessor. It is a position which may be wholly 
free from any conscious hypocrisy. Millions "join the 
church" who never join Christ (i Cor. vi: 17; xii: 12, 13) ; 
and their danger lies in the very fact that they are saying 
"Lord, Lord," as a parrot might, without any vital faith in 
Him who "died for our sins, and rose again for our justifi- 
cation." 

Supposing themselves to be Christians, they are unmoved 
by Gospel appeals. The men of this lesson are genuinely as- 
tonished to find themselves excluded. "Many will say to 
Me in that day. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy 
name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy 
name done many wonderful works? 

That a notable preacher has won thousands of converts 
is no proof that he is a Christian. It is the name of Jesus, 
and the potency of His Word (Isa. lv:2) which have 
wrought the "wonderful works," not the faith of the un- 
converted preacher. 

It is to be noted, furthermore, that Matthew is the book 
of the kingdom of heaven, and is filled with warnings to 
mere professing subjects of that kingdom. In Matthew it 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 131 

is Christendom — the sphere of profession — wliich is promi- 
nently in view. What Christendom, as distinguished from 
the church, is, is told out in Matthew xiii. There tares and 
wheat are seen growing together till the harvest. The tares 
are the children of the wicked one, and, under the garb of 
profession, are so like the wheat, the real children of the 
kingdom, that only the angels can be trusted to separate 
them (Matt, xiii: 24-30, 36-43; xxv: 8-12, 24-30). There- 
fore tests are given by which false teachers may be distin- 
guished from the true (Matt, vii: 15, 16) ; and by which a 
deceived professor may be undeceived (vii: 21). That test 
is not zeal (verse 22), but simple obedience to the known 
will of God. What that will is Jesus plainly declared (John 
vi:28, 29). Not casting out demons, not preaching, not 
wonderful works, but, "this is the will of God that ye believe 
on Him whom He hath sent," that is the true test. Every 
such believer is building on the Rock. 



HE CALMS THE STORM. 

(Mark iv: 35-41.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. Difficulties in the path of obedience (verses 35-37). — It 
is easy to misinterpret the providences of God, and this we 
are in especial danger of doing when troubles seem over- 
whelming. We may hastily say : "Somehow, I have missed 
the Lord's guidance;" or, "I am under chastening for fail- 
ure."- We. forget that testings are inevitable in the path of 
faith (James i: 12; i Pet. iv: 12, 13). The path of obedi- 
ence for Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego led straight into 
a fiery furnace, and for Daniel, into a den of lions. 

2. The hunmn Christ/(YtvsQ 38).— It had been a day of 



132 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

intense activity, and Jesus was physically exhausted. True 
service is costly — costs life itself. When the woman with an 
issue of blood touched Jesus' garment she was healed, but 
He said: *'I perceive that virtue is gone out of me" (Luke 
viii:46). But more than physical eflfort had marked this 
particular day. In it, our Lord had taken the place of the 
rejected One of Isa. vi: 9-11, and who shall say what sorrow 
for Israel had rent His heart (Comp. Mark iv with Matt, 
xiii: 10-15). 

3. The Divine Christ (verse 39). How striking the con- 
trast! In one instant, the weary Servant is in the sleep of 
utter exhaustion; in the next. He is creation's Lord, com- 
manding the very elements of nature into obedience ! Scrip- 
ture never "reconciles" these paradoxes of the Incarnation — 
that is the poor botch-work of men. 

4. The question of unbelief, verses 40, 41 (See below). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

"Carest thou not?" The disciple's question of unbeHef is 
clearly the heart of things in this lesson — the question of our 
Lord, "Why are ye fearful? Have ye not yet faith?" (R. 
V.) makes it evident that not the wonder of the miracles, 
but the wonder of the disciples' unfaith occupied His mind. 
"Carest thou not?" — the disciple's question. "Why are ye 
fearful?" — our Lord's question. Let us think about these 
two questions. 

And first the disciple's question. The storm was very 
great, so that even the hardy fishermen, whose familiar ele- 
ments were wind and wave, began to lose hope — but the Lord 
of storms, the Master of waves, slept on. The peril grew 
greater, "insomuch that the boat was now filling" (R. V.) — 
but He made no sign. Truly, it seemed as if He did not 
care. Wliy should He, creation's Lord, be, or at least seem 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 133 

to be, indifferent to the danger and distress of those who had 
left all to follow Him ? It was indeed a most real difficulty 
to mere sense and reason. 

And the disciples applied to the difficulty mere sense and 
reason. There were the wind and waves, and the rapidly 
filling boat ; and there. His head upon the boat cushion, in 
the stern sheets, lay the Saviour, apparently unconscious and 
indifferent. Is the situation, in its deep heart and essence, 
unknown among us, the disciples of to-day? Is it just an 
old Bible story, with no modern instance and illustration? 
Alas, no. It is a very modern matter ; it is the sin of us all. 

Our business matters go wrong. It is not our fault; a 
great storm is sweeping over the world of business, and our 
little boat begins to fill, and we make our prayer, but no 
answer comes, and we say: "Carest thou not?" Or a dear 
one lies desperately near to death. Despite every effort, 
every resource of science, our heart's treasure slips through 
our clinging arms into death. We pray, but no answer 
comes, and in our bitterness we ask : ''Carest thou not ?" 

Or there is before us some object of desire. It seems so 
near, so dear, so altogether innocent and right. We per- 
suade ourselves that life's chiefest good lies in the thing de- 
sired. But heaven seems deaf, and we sadly say: "Carest 
thou not?" 

It is all mere shameful unbelief and cruel wrong to Christ. 
He always cares — cares day and night — cares when we for- 
get. But He cares for our highest good, and faith knows 
that He never cares more than when He seems asleep. 



134 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

THE DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

(Matt, xiv: 1-12.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The cowardice of a had conscience (verses 1-3). — Men 
who reject the truth of God are sure to be the victims of 
superstition and error (2 Thess. ii:9-i2), and men who do 
wrong must suffer from an outraged conscience. 

2. The mystery of a perverted conscience (verses 3-1 1). — 
Herod was afraid of John the Baptist with a superstitious 
fear. He was a degraded sensuaHst. If conscience could be 
utterly slain, Herod's would have been long since dead with- 
in him. But though the conscience may be perverted to any 
imaginable degree, dwarfed, or misdirected, it is sure to sur- 
vive in some form. This man was willing enough to murder 
a righteous man, but not willing to break an unrighteous 
oath to a dancing woman (comp. Acts xxvi: 9-1 1). 

3. The resource of troubled saints, verse 12 (See below). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

"And went and told Jesus." There was wisdom ! Think 
how absolutely overwhelming was the disaster of John's 
death to his little company of followers. To become a dis- 
ciple of John the Baptist meant little in the first flush of his 
popularity, but to remain his disciple after his biting in- 
vective had enraged the religious authorities, meant utter 
ostracism. And now he, the last and greatest of the old 
line of Israel's prophet's, was dead — done to death by the 
whim of an unclean despot at the request of a dancer ! What 
was left to John's disciples ? Why, to take up his dear body 
and bury it, and to go and tell Jesus. But that was every- 
thing. It is not merely that so long as Jesus is left to us no 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 135 

disaster is irremediable. Far more than that: so long as 
Jesus is left to us, everything is left. To go and tell Jesus 
is the supreme resource. 

It is the resource for consolation. There is a wonderful 
reticence in the Scripture narratives. We are not told what 
the Lord said to Simon Peter in that interview on the morn- 
ing of the resurrection — that talk was too sacred for words. 
We are not told what Simon told Paul when, fourteen years 
after his return from Arabia, the great Apostle to the Gen- 
tiles went up to Jerusalem to see Peter. Neither are we 
told what wonderful words of comfort Jesus spake to John's 
grief-stricken disciples. These things cannot be told. Can 
you tell what Jesus said when your dearest one lay dead, 
and you went and told Jesus? No, you cannot. 

One feels sure Jesus spoke much of the past. He would 
remind them how blessed they had been to have such com- 
panionship, to know the uplift, the inspiration of such a 
man's friendship. He would speak of the future, too ; telling 
them that John's work and theirs was not lost, could never 
be lost. And He would be sure to say a word of heaven and 
of how they should reknit the old friendship up there, never 
more to be broken. 

To go and tell Jesus is the resource for renewal of strength 
when hope is faint, and the way seems hard, and the heavens 
brass. "How can we go on. Master ?" John's disciples would 
ask. "Go on with Me," would be the answer. "Do you not 
remember how John said, "I am not the Christ?" Here am 
I — ^the Light, the Life, the Truth, the Way — go on with 
Me." 

It would be a poor thing to keep this resource only for the 
days of bereavement, of sorrow, of discouragement. When 
hope is high, and the pulse of life strong, and the horizon 
all aglow; when victory, not defeat; new life, not death, 



136 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

have come, oh, then, too, go and tell Jesus. There is no 
sharer of joy and peace and power to compare with Jesus. 



FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND. 

(Matt, xiv: 13-23.) 

I. The Analysis. 

1. The compassion of Jesus (verses 13, 14). — Mark tells 
us the cause of our Lord's compassion : "Because they were 
as sheep not having a shepherd." He adds, also, that, **He 
began to teach them many things." There is grave danger 
in the allegorizing habit, which must always find some 
occult meaning in our Lord's miracles. Again and again 
the Scriptures ascribe compassion as His sufficient motive 
(Matt, ix 136; xiv: 14; xviii : 27 ; Lukevii:i3; x: 33, etc.). 

2. The super service able disciples (verse 15). — This is the 
first recorded example of the habit of giving advice to the 
Lord — a habit which is all but universal among disciples to- 
day. It is, of course, a mere impertinence (Luke viii : 45 ; 
John xi : 39 ; Matt, xvi : 22.) 

3. Anything, plus the Lord Jesus, is enough, verses 16-21 
(See below). 

4. The divine order in ministry (verse 19). — From the 
Lord, through man to men, is ever the divine order. It be- 
gan with the incarnation, when *'God so loved the world that 
He gave His only begotten Son," to be "made of a woman," 
that through a man He might save men. It is continued in 
this present church-age when the glorified Lord is giving 
gifts — "some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evan- 
gelists; and some, pastors and teachers" (Eph. iv: 11). 

5. The loneliness of Jesus (verse 23). — It seems incredi- 
ble that of all whom He had that day healed, taught, fed, not 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 137 

one refused to be sent away — that not one followed even 
afar off, and then crept near to the lonely One in the dark- 
ness. What a commentary on human nature! 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

"Bring them hither to me." How amazed the disciples 
were when Jesus said of the hungry multitude : "They need 
not depart ; give ye them to eat." ''Shall we go and buy two 
hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat ?" they 
asked (Mark vi: 37). But Philip was of opinion "that two 
hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that 
every one of them may take a little" (John vi: 7). 

Clearly the thing could not be done. The Lord had for- 
gotten the slenderness of their resources. He was suggesting 
the impossible. So they would set Him right, and bring the 
matter to an end by plainly telling Him the facts. "There is 
a lad here, which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes ; 
but what are they among so many?" (John vi : 8, 9). That, 
of course, settled the matter, for the church had not yet 
reached the point of suggesting a pink social, or a Trilby 
party to increase its resources, nor, indeed, was there time. 

But no, the quiet command came : "Make all sit down by 
companies on the green grass" (Mark vi:39). And then 
He "took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up 
to heaven. He blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to His 
disciples, and the disciples to the multitude" — and, oh, won- 
der of wonders ! — "they did all eat and were filled ; and they 
took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full." 

How this story repeats itself ! For we are forever meas- 
uring the possibilities of Christian life and service by our 
five loaves and two fishes of resource, forgetting that we are 
a supernaturally redeemed folk, set to live by an ethical 
standard which is impossible to mere human nature, and to 



138 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

perform tasks absolutely impossible to the natural man. 
Think of the command given by the risen Lord to a hand- 
ful of illiterate Galileeans, to evangelize the world! Was 
any enterprise so vast ever committed to resources so in- 
adequate? We are always forgetting that with God all 
things are possible. 

The deeper truth is that there has never been a genera- 
tion since Pentecost to which that enterprise was impossible. 
And to-day, in this present generation, disregarding entirely 
the professing church with its boundless wealth, it is entirely 
possible for ten thousand devoted Christians to evangelize 
the world if only they will put themselves and their resources 
into the power giving hands of Christ. 



THE VISIT TO TYRE AND SIDON. 

(Mark vii: 24-37.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Christ who cannot be hidden away (verses 24, 25). 
— It was not only true of the earth life of our Lord that, once 
manifested to Israel, retirement became impossible (Mark 
ii:i; iii:7, 8; Luke vii: 37; Mark vi: 31-33); but in a 
deeper sense it is continuously true that wherever Christ is 
He cannot be hid. Secret discipleship is never a permanent 
possibility. If Christ be "in you the hope of glory" there 
will inevitably be some manifestation of His presence. 

2. The dispensational lesson (verses 26-28). — Matthew 
tells us (xv:22) that the Gentile woman began by seeking 
to put herself on Jewish ground: "Have mercy on me, O 
Lord, thou son of David." But on that ground she had no 
rights (Eph. ii: 11, 12), for as a Gentile she was outside the 
Davidic Covenant (Matt. xv:24). But when she took her 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 139 

place on universal ground and called Him "Lord" (Matt. 
XV : 25) she obtained her request. On that ground "there is 
no difference between the Jew and the Greek : for the same 
Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him" (Rom. x: 
12, 13). 
3. The sigh of Christ (verses 31-37). (See below.) 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

That Jesus should have preserved vital dispensational dis- 
tinctions, remaining silent when addressed by a Gentile as 
"son of David" because the Gentiles as such are "strangers" 
from the Davidic "covenant of promise" (Eph. ii: 11, 12) ; 
that He should have responded when, taking her true Gen- 
tile position, she called upon Him as "Lord" (Rom. x: 12, 
13) ; that He should heal the man who was deaf and dumb — 
these cannot be the core truths of this lesson, because they 
are equally taught in many lessons. He was always care- 
fully preserving divinely made distinctions; He was always 
healing the sick, and restoring the infirm. But only twice 
is it said of Him that He sighed. Our lesson records the 
first instance, and again (Mark viii: 12), when the Pharisees 
sought of Him a sign, "He sighed deeply in His spirit, and 
saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign?" 

The character, the heart, the inmost thought of Jesus — 
these for centuries have been the study of those who have 
loved Him ; who have with passionate intensity desired above 
all other desires that they might by any means come to be 
like Him. They have sought to come to the knowledge of 
these deeper facts of His being by meditation upon His 
words, and His actions. And this is a true method, for with 
Him whatever was outward, visible, audible, was in truth 
the natural and unforced expression of His inner self. 

But may not an even surer highway into the heart of our 



140 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Lord be found through His emotions ? Beyond question this 
is true of all other human beings — why not of Jesus, who 
was more truly human than we? Tell me what makes a 
man laugh, what makes him weep, what stirs his indigna- 
tion, what arouses his wonder, what amazes him — and I shall 
come at no greatly inaccurate knowledge of the man himself. 

Now Jesus was no stoic. He stood an unfallen man in 
the midst of fallen men, but foursquare to all the winds that 
swept over them, and He opened His heart to all the influ- 
ences, not sinful, which played in upon their hearts. He 
loved children and flowers and birds. What does His sigh 
tell us of Him? 

A sigh is the natural, physical expression of the peculiar 
depression caused by sadness. It does not imply discourage- 
ment — still less doubt or despair. It is the expression of the 
soul cast down. David knew this, and when his soul was 
cast down he still held high his faith and hope, and manfully 
talked with his soul. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, 
and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, 
for I shall yet praise him." 

We know oft and again the soul cast down, and the sigh 
upbreathed from the depths. Oppressed by the ears deaf to 
the message of God, and lips dumb to the praises of God ; 
oppressed by the hardness of the Pharisee's heart; feeling 
the dead weight of the accumulated sin of the centuries, we 
sigh ! 

Well, our blessed Lord sighed too, and under the same 
burden, but he healed as before, and fought steadily on — 
and so, God helping, will we. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 141 

PETER CONFESSES THE CHRIST. 

(Mark viii : 27-38 ; Matt, xvi : 13-21.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The folly of human opinion about Jesus (verses 27, 
28). — For more than two years our Lord had pursued a min- 
istry of extraordinary pubHcity and activity in a small and 
densely populated land. He was the most conspicuous figure 
of His time. Every one had heard of Him, or at least heard 
about Him. His own account of Himself as the Sent One 
of the Father, the Messiah, the Saviour, was well known. 
And these were the opinions of the public concerning Him 
— "John the Baptist, EHas, one of the prophets," What a 
comment on the truth of our Lord's words in John vi : 44 ! 

2. The great confession (verse 29; Matt, xvi: 16). — 
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our 
Lord's answer was two-fold. He first points out the source 
of Peter's faith, "flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
thee, but my Father in heaven." Flesh and blood said: 
"EHas or one of the prophets" ; the Father said : "This is 
my beloved Son." So much, and so little, is mere human 
opinion, however scholarly, worth in the sphere of faith. 
Secondly, our Lord announced the church to be built upon 
Himself the Rock, in His character of "the Christ the Son 
of the Living God." 

3. Satan rebuked through Peter (verses 31-33). — Com- 
pare Gen. iii: 14, 15; Isa. xiv:4, 12. In the first instance 
Satan is addressed through Peter; in the second, through 
the serpent; in the third, through the king of Babylon. It 
is the way of Scripture. But the deeper lesson is that the 
servant of the Lord is never in greater danger of becoming 
the mere mouthpiece of the devil than in the moment of 
some peculiar spiritual revelation. 



142 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

4. The gredt law of the Christian life (verses 34-38.) 
(See below.) 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The Christian, Hke Peter, is a confessor — which is quite 
another thing from being a professor. Like Peter, he be- 
lieves that Jesus is ''the Christ, the Son of God," and, so be- 
lieving, he "has life through his name" (John xx:3i), and 
he confesses that faith before men. But to believe on Christ 
implies vastly more than to believe that He interposed be- 
tween the sinner and the doom of perdition. The act of 
faith identifies the believer with Christ ; he becomes a branch 
in that Vine — a member in that Body (John xv : 1-4 ; i Cor. 
xii: 12, 13), sharing His nature (2 Peter i:4), His life, His" 
future (Col. iii: 3, 4). 

And because of this absolute identification of the believer 
with "the Christ, the Son of God," he is committed to live 
the Christ life on earth. In its perfection, indeed, he may 
not hope to reproduce that life, but what he may do is to 
accept its basal principle. 

When our Lord began to open that principle as applied to 
Himself, and "to teach them that the Son of man must suf- 
fer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the 
chief priests, and scribes, and be killed," Peter cried out 
(Matt, xvi: 23), "Pity thyself, Lord." It was Satan's word, 
as our Lord declared, but, also, it was, and ever is, the word 
of the old self -life within. 

What Peter passed over in his haste was our Lord's clos- 
ing word, "and after three days rise again." Ah, that may 
make all the difference! Yes, it is that linking of eternal 
consequences to actions done in life that does make all the 
difference. Christ "endured the cross, despising the shame, 
and is set down at the right hand of God" (Heb. xii: 2), 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 143 

and He endured for that "joy set before him." 

That, precisely, is the principle, the philosophy, of the law 
of the Christian life enunciated in our lesson: "For who- 
soever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall 
lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's the same shall 
find it." When? "When He cometh in the Glory of His 
Father with the holy angels." 

Here, then, is the heart of this lesson. To confess Jesus 
as the Christ, the Son of God, is not only to find a Saviour, 
but to accept the Christ theory of life. That theory takes 
account of two worlds, and finds the life that now is to be 
incomparably the most precious and valuable thing which 
the believer possesses. The garmenture of life — wealth, 
learning, power, position — these are mere dross compared 
with life itself. The believer may do two things with his 
life: he may use it for self — and use it up. So used it is 
gone. Or he may invest it in others for Jesus' and the Gos- 
pel's sake. So used every moment of it is transmuted into 
the gold of the eternal kingdom — "he shall find it again." 

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 

(Mark ix: 1-13.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The fulfillment of a promise (verses 1-7). — The 
Lord had promised that some standing with Him should not 
taste death till they had seen the kingdom. Verses 1-7 
record the fulfillment of that promise. The transfiguration 
scene w^as not only a prophecy in action of the kingdom in 
its future manifestation, but was the kingdom in all its 
essential elements. These are, first, a glorified Christ, the 
centre; secondly, glorified saints, represented by Moses and 



144 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Elijah, one of whom entered the glory through death, the 
other through rapture (i Thess. iv: 14-17) ; and living 
saints in their natural bodies on the earth, represented by 
Peter, James and John. When all was thus arranged, the 
Father's voice was heard over all. 

2. Peter forgets the great law of the Christian life 
(verses 5, 6). — It was so "good" to be in that great scene 
that Peter quite forgot the multitude at the foot of the moun- 
tain (verse 14), and even the less privileged disciples. 

3. Jesus completes and supplants the law of the prophets 
(verses 7-9). (See below.) 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Peter had fallen into a twofold error — he had put Moses 
and Elijah on the same plane with Jesus, and he had for- 
gotten both the less privileged disciples and the unsaved 
multitudes at the foot of the mountain (verses 14-29). 
Down there was a powerless church and an afflicted world. 
Moses was, indeed, "faithful in all his house as a servant," 
but "Christ as a Son, over His own house." And Christ 
was as immeasurably out of comparison with Moses as God 
ever is and ever must be out of such comparison (Heb. 
iii: 3-6). Both mistakes were quickly corrected. Moses and 
Elijah disappeared, and they saw "no man any more save 
Jesus only" ; and He led them down from the mount of 
vision into the sore need of the earth below. 

And that is the true use of vision. Moses, indeed, might 
have taught Peter that, for he had once been forty days in 
the glory studying "the patterns of the things in the heav- 
ens," only that he might come down again and reproduce 
them on the earth : "For see, saith he, that thou make all 
these things according to the pattern showed to thee in the 
mount." If the servant of God is privileged to "mount up 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 145 

with wings as eagles," it is only that, renewed in faith, and 
with vision purified, he may "run and not be weary, and walk 
and not faint" (Isa. xl: 31). 

It is interesting to note that, largely, Peter's folly was 
due to a supposed necessity for saying something : "For he 
wist not what to say." Doubtless, then, he should have said 
nothing. Possibly many a church service would be quite 
wonderfully fruitful if the minister should humbly say: 
"Brethren, I have no message from God this morning. 
Whether it be your fault or mine I know not, but this I do 
know, that I have no message from Him." 

But these are, after all, gleanings from the surface of this 
lesson; the lesson of the lesson is that in Jesus is the con- 
summation of all the counsels of God, and that neither the 
church nor the world needs any "man any more save Jesus 
only." In Him dwells "all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily" ; and in Him are "hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge" (Col. iirg, 3). 

It is "Jesus only" for salvation. There is "none other 
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be 
saved" ; and upon finding the right answer to Pilate's ques- 
tion : "What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ," 
depends the eternal destiny of every human being to whom 
the offer of God's mercy in Christ Jesus is made. Even 
after nineteen hundred years of Gospel preaching it is still 
but dimly apprehended that Jesus Christ is God's only open 
proposition to the world. The age of law is past, and the 
sentence of the law rests upon every human being who is 
out of Christ. God is no longer saying: "If ye will enter 
into life, keep the commandments," but, "Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." And it is not 
only Jesus for salvation, but "Jesus only/' Nothing, abso- 
10 



146 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

lutely nothing but faith in Him is either required of the sin- 
ner or accepted of God. 

It is "J^sus only" for sanctification. ''Beholding as in a 
mirror the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same 
image from glory to glory." True it is by *'the Lord the 
Spirit," but the Spirit effects the wonderful transformation 
simply by showing us His glory (John xvi: 14), and at last 
the final consummation of sanctification will be brought by 
the vision of "Jesus only," when we shall "see Him as He 
is" (i John iii: 2). 

It is "Jesus only" for whom we watch and wait. Having 
"turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true 
God," the believer waits, not for death, still less for judg- 
ment, but "for his Son from heaven" (i Thess. i: 9, 10). 



THE MISSION OF THE SEVENTY. 

(Luke x: 1-16.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The servants of the Lord, when divinely guided, will 
he sent only where He is also going (verse i ) . (See below.) 

2. The divine rule for obtaining missionaries (verse 2). 
The church, alas, has largely forsaken this direction, and has 
substituted for simple prayer to the Lord of the harvest the 
method of frantic appeal; of enthusiasm, too often of the 
flesh, induced by great conventions and inflammatory ad- 
dresses. The lamentable consequences on the mission fields 
are too sadly well known. 

3. A great principle in the divine government (verses 3- 
16). — The preaching of the Seventy was local and Israelitish 
in its scope (verse i with Matt. xv:24), and their message 
was simply, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" ; "the king- 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 147 

dom of God is come nigh unto you." The preaching of the 
church age differs in scope and message. Its scope is uni- 
versal; its message, "beHeve on the Lord Jesus Christ and 
thou shalt be saved." 

But the principle involved is identical: the alternative to 
those who reject the message is judgment (Acts xvii : 30, 31 ; 
Hebrews x: 26, 27). 

3. The identification of Christ with His messengers 
(verse 16.) — Surely most comforting. If we, faithfully 
bearing His message, are rejected, He is rejected. If He 
patiently bears it, surely we may. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The mission of the Seventy was local and transitory, and 
their message was simply one of warning and preparation. 
Into whatever city the Lord sent them, He was shortly to 
appear also. The kingdom was '*at hand," and the King, al- 
ready manifested to Israel by mighty works, would soon 
enter their gates. Neither mission nor message was com- 
parable in scope or power to the mission and message of the 
church. The Seventy were shut up to Palestine. Not even 
the Jews of the dispersion were to be sought. Our mission 
is to "all the world." The message of the Seventy was one 
of warning : **The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." 
Our message is one of immediate and complete salvation: 
''Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

But in one important respect both missions are alike — the 
Lord, in both, identifies Himself with His servants. That 
is the heart of this lesson: "He that heareth you, heareth 
me and he that despiseth you, despiseth me." 

It is beautiful to note the progress of doctrine, the enlarge- 
ment and unfolding of truth in the Scriptures. The Seventy 
were heralds of the King. Their mission was to announce 



148 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

His coming. To refuse them, therefore, was equivalent to 
saying, "We do not want this King." The affront, the rejec- 
tion, were not at all personal to the Seventy as men, but as 
heralds. 

But when the great commission was given to the church 
to go to all the world and make disciples of all nations, a 
closer identification is indicated: "And lo, I am mith you 
all the days even unto the end of the age" (Matt, xxviii : 20). 
It is not that we are heralds going "before his face into every 
city and place whither he himself would come," but that 
He Himself marches with us. And if with us, surely in 
advance of us, as "princely Leader." When Joshua before 
Jericho saw a man over against him with a drawn sword 
in his hand, he demanded of him: "Art thou for us, or for 
our adversaries?" he answered: "Nay, but as princely cap- 
tain of the host of the Lord am I now come." No wonder 
that Joshua "fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, 
and said unto him. What saith my Lord unto his servant?" 

The Christian consciousness has sadly failed to grasp the 
great sense in which the Lord is "with" us "all the days." 
We have thought of Him as helper — as a kind of reserve 
force for times when the battle goes hard, and we seem about 
to be beaten back. That was Joshua's hope as he accosted 
the Stranger with the drawn sword ; he saw in Him a pos- 
sible reinforcement. Ah, no ; he came to go before Captain 
Joshua; to lift all responsibility for plan and strategy and 
result from Joshua, leaving to him the simple, restful duty 
of obedience. 

A subordinate Confederate general has recorded in his 
memoirs the immense sense of relief which came to him 
when, in one of the desperate battles of the Civil War, Gen- 
eral Lee arrived upon the field. Much fighting was still to 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 149 

be done, but the responsibility for all save obedience rested 
now upon another. 

It is a great day for any servant of the Lord when he sees 
that. 

PRAYER AND PROMISE. 

(Ivuke xi: 1-13.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Disciples' Request (verse i). — Note that the dis- 
ciples did not, as usually quoted, ask the Lord to teach them 
how to pray, but ''to pray" — a far more vital thing. These 
Jews had already known how to say prayers, but they ob- 
served (**as He was praying in a certain place") that one 
great contrast between themselves and their Lord was that 
He was a man of prayer, while they were not men of prayer. 
That contrast exists in the church to-day. We greatly need 
to be taught to pray. 

2. Our Lord's Answer (verses 2-13) . — Our Lord's answer, 
be it remembered, is designed not so much to teach us how 
to pray as to make praying Christians of us. This He ac- 
complishes by (i) laying a foundation for prayer: ''When 
ye pray, say, Our Father" (See below). (2) He teaches 
us that all right prayer desires above all else the exaltation 
of God: "Hallowed be thy name." (3) Right prayer puts 
the general good above personal desire : "thy kingdom come." 
(4) Right prayer takes before God the real need, whatever 
it may be: "give us day by day our daily bread," etc. (5) 
Right prayer is definite: "Friend, lend me three loaves." 
(6) It must not be thought that our Father is like an earthly 
friend who must be importuned before he will rise and give. 
On the contrary, so willing is He to give that "I say unto 
you, ask and it shall be given you," etc. 



150 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Nothing could more grossly misinterpret this parable than 
to say our Lord meant to compare our Father to the sleepy, 
reluctant friend. Contrast, not similitude, is before us here. 
(7) Prayer is an exceedingly simple thing. For these seven 
reasons — pray. 

Note. — It can scarcely be necessary to remind the student 
that the model prayer given here, and, in substance in Matt. 
vi:9-i3, is of use to the Christian not as a form of prayer, 
but only as a lesson on praying. Suited to the then state of 
the disciples as being still under law, and with redemption 
still unaccomplished, it is wholly unsuited to the Christian. 

1. It is not a prayer in Christ's name (cf. John xvi: 23, 24). 

2. It conditions the forgiveness of sins upon something the 
disciple has done, whereas the Christian is forgiven because 
of what Christ has done (i John ii: 12; Acts xiii:38, 39; 
Eph. iv:32). 

It should be added that the promise concerning the gift 
of the Spirit has been superseded by Pentecost. The Holy 
Spirit has been given, and every believer is indwelt by Him 
(iCor. vi:i9; Rom. viii:9; Eph. i 113; iv:3o). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

When ye pray, say, *'Our Father," that is Jesus Christ's 
philosophy of prayer. The Christian is a child, and has a 
Father, and that Father is on the throne of the universe, 
therefore it is supremely rational to pray. Goldwin Smith 
has said that "the worst consequence of atheism is that it 
leaves us orphaned and guideless in a vast vortex of blind 
force." Unfortunately there are many who are by no means 
atheists whose dismal creed would only change one word in 
that sentence. For ''blind" they would say, "ordered." The 
vortex remains, and the force, only the force is conceived of 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDlES fSI 

— and rightly enough if we take only the natural into view — 
as governed by majestic laws. 

That philosophy does not deny the existence, nor even the 
creatorship of God, but only that He has given nature cer- 
tain laws which are irreversible and uncontrollable, even by 
the God who made them. He leaves volitional capacity to 
men and to angels, but has put volition out of His own 
reach. Having set the wheels to spinning, and the cogs to 
grinding, the mightiest force conceivable, the power of God, 
is bound hand and foot. 

Prayer, say these men, is by no means useless, for the 
communion with God which it necessitates exerts an impor- 
tant reflex influence on him who prays. True, he does not 
get anything unless his prayer happens to coincide with some 
working of natural law, but as he prays he sees that it is 
really unimportant whether he gets anything or not. 

Then there are those who conceive of God as a great 
decree-maker. Foreseeing everything. He has prearranged 
everything. If we seem to have an answer to prayer it is 
only because we happened to ask for something decreed. 
These, too, make much of the reflex benefit of prayer. 

Now, over against these theories which inevitably dis- 
courage prayer, and logically would end all praying, Christ 
puts the great word Father. He is far from denying that 
God is a law-maker and a decree-maker, but He affirms a 
larger fact concerning God. He does indeed make laws for 
nature, and laws in the sphere of the moral being of man. 
He does indeed make and execute decrees. But, to Christ, 
what was a law of nature? His Father's usual way of doing 
things. Christ neither manifested nor taught the pseudo- 
scientific superstititious veneration for a law of nature. The 
general manager of a great railroad imposes upon it of ne- 
cessity a minute and, to any one save himself, an inexorable 



152 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

system of rules. Perhaps there is no better illustration of a 
law-regulated universe than that afforded by a great modern 
railway. But the rules imposed by the general manager do 
not make it impossible for him to send out an extra. On a 
notable occasion the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
ordered every train between Altoona and Pittsburgh side- 
tracked to leave the way open to him as he sped to the side of 
an injured son. His fatherhood was greater than his laws. 

So much Christ affirms. Creatorship and law-making are 
so to speak swallowed up in the vastly greater fact of father- 
hood. 

The Old Testament saint grounded his prayer on the cove- 
nant; the New Testament saint grounds his prayer on re- 
lationship. 

WATCHFULNESS. 

(Luke xii : 35-48.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Believer's Attitude in View of the Possible Return 
of the Lord at Any Moment (verses 35-40). — Doubtless, 
there is an especial word here for the converted Jewish rem- 
nant who will be the "servants" during the great tribulation 
— that period of universal woe (Jer. xxx:4-8; Joel ii:2; 
Matt, xxiv: 15-22), which is to be terminated by our Lord's 
return from His wedding to the church (Rev. xix: 7, 8), but 
this attitude is, if possible, more absolutely that of the church 
(Phil. iii:20, 21; i Thess. \:g, 10; iv: 14-17; Titus ii: 

11-13)- 

2. Service now is unto Joint Rulership with Christ in the 
Kingdom (verses 41-44). — It cannot be too clearly held that 
(i) the church is not the kingdom. That so far from now 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 153 

seeking subjects for the kingdom, the Lord is calling out the 
co-rulers over the future kingdom ( i Pet. ii : 9 ; Rev. i : 5, 6 ; 
2 Tim. ii: 11, 12; Rev. iii: 21). (2) That the church is not 
now reigning, but suffering and serving. 

3. Any teaching which says: ''My Lord delayeth His 
coming'' is ''evil" (Matt. xxiv:48). Verses 45, 56. The 
thought here evidently is that any teaching which involves 
such a "delay" of the Lord's return as destroys the attitude 
of constant "watching" and "waiting" is forbidden. How 
can it be possible for a servant to "watch" and "wait" for an 
event which cannot possibly occur till after the millennium? 

4. Penalty is in proportion to light sinned against (verses 
47,48). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Presumably, the present lesson was selected as the tem- 
perance lesson for the quarter because it contains the word 
"drunken." It is, of course, a lesson on the second coming 
of Christ, and only by inference a temperance lesson, and yet 
the inference is a perfectly sound one, for the Holy Spirit 
elsewhere bases a direct appeal to sobriety in respect of in- 
toxicants on the very ground of our Lord's imminent re- 
turn (i Thess. v: 1-7). The cogency of that expectation as 
a motive to all right living is, therefore, the heart of this 
lesson. In considering it no attention will be given to dis- 
cussions as to the nature and time of our Lord's return. 

Let it suffice, then, to say, first of all, that which all agree 
in saying, that the fact of our Lord's return is invariably 
stated as an event for which all Christians are to "wait" and 
"watch." That appears sufficiently from our present lesson. 
Believers are to be "like unto men that wait for their Lord." 
That company may be "in the second watch," or, "in the third 
watch," but whether it be soon or late, "blessed are those 



154 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

servants whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watch- 
ing." 

That is the parable, and the application of it (verse 40) 
is natural and simple: **Be ye therefore ready also; for 
the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not." The 
coming of the Lord, an event predicted by the Lord Himself, 
but the time of which is nowhere revealed, gives, therefore, 
the characteristic attitude of the Christian. This is the uni- 
form teaching. The Thessalonians are reminded that they 
**turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, 
and to wait for His Son from heaven" (i Thess. i : 9, 10). 
Titus is taught that *'the grace of God that bringeth salvation 
hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodli- 
ness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, 
and godly in this world, looking for that blessed hope and 
the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, 
Jesus Christ" (Titus ii:ii-i3). 

But this truth is not revealed as a mere curiosity of the 
Divine purpose, still less as a theme for theologic contro- 
versy, but is invariably charged with the highest ethical and 
practical bearing. The Christian is to be sober because of it 
(Luke xii:45; i Thess. \:i-y); patient under wrong 
(James v: 7, 8) ; moderate (Phil, iv: 5) ; charitable (i Cor. 
iv: 5) ; diligent (Luke xii: 42, 43) ; pure (i John iv; iii: 2, 
3) ; and always abiding in Jesus (i John ii: 2'^). 

One great peril besets this mighty motive, and of this 
peril we are warned. Men will say, "My Lord delayeth His 
coming." The picture is a household expecting the master's 
return, but in ignorance of the time. So far as they know, 
it may be at any time. The effect upon the servants of this 
combined certainty and uncertainty — the certainty that he is 
coming, the uncertainty of the time — is evident they must 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 155 

be always ready. The lights must be burning and them- 
selves girded. 

But the case is supposed that one of the servants may suc- 
ceed in convincing the other servants that some delay has 
occurred — that the master cannot come until some other 
event which they may observe has transpired. Obviously the 
lights will go out, the servants will lay aside the girdle of 
service, and a servant taking the place of the absent master 
will begin to lord it over the other servants, and to live the 
mere life of the senses — "to eat and to drink, and to be 
drunken." It is the one peril to this mighty motive against 
which we are warned. It is, therefore, a grievous thing to 
say, "my Lord delayeth His coming." As all know, pre- 
cisely this thing occurred historically. For three centuries 
the church was in the attitude of expectation. Then, with the 
rise of false priesthood heading up in the papacy, the evil 
servant began to say: "Thy Lord delayeth His coming," 
and the predicted result followed. The child of God does 
not need to be an expert in the prophetical casuistries; he 
needs only to know that any theory which destroys his watch- 
ing attitude is of the evil servant. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 

(Luke XV : 11-24.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The father, not the sons, the primary object of the les- 
son (verses 11, 12, 20-24). 

2. The essence of all sin, insubordination to the will of the 
Father (verses 12, 13). — The implication here is evident. 
The younger son preferred independency to authority. It is 



156 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the core of all sin (i John iii: 4, R. V.). The "man of sin" 
(2 Thess. ii:3) is, literally, *'the lawless one." 

3. The universe is not arranged to make self -mill result in 
happiness (verses 14-16). — The father does not follow his 
lawless son, but leaves him to the inevitable operation of the 
universal law, which rivets together sin and suffering. It 
is only grace which rivets together suffering and glory (Rom. 
viii : 17 ; Luke xxiv : 26) . 

4. A backslider's repentance (verses 17-19,21). — It should 
be remembered that the son here is a type of the backslider, 
rather than of the unrenewed sinner (2 Cor. vii: 9-11). 

5. The joy of our Father God over a returning son 
(verses 20-24). — What a picture! It may be commended to 
all backsliders for their encouragement, and to all theologians 
who, in a misplaced zeal for the authority of God, have de- 
fathered Him for their condemnation. What is our God and 
Father like ? Like this father in the parable. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

This is but a half lesson. We habitually speak of Luke 
XV : 11-32 as ''the parable of the prodigal son," but the Bible 
says it concerns "A certain man who had two sons." The 
emphasis falls neither upon the prodigal nor upon the prodi- 
gal's brother, but upon the ''certain man." The two sons in 
their different ways bring out what is in the father's heart. 

So considered, the heart of the lesson is the most surpris- 
ing and altogether astounding revelation that Jesus Christ 
ever gave to humanity. It is only our familiarity in a super- 
ficial, often half sentimental, way with the form into which 
Jesus cast the revelation which blinds our minds to the won- 
der and unexpectedness of it. We are possessed to think only 
of the boy who went away into the far country. 

Take a proof. Every one has seen either in the original or 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 157 

in one of the numberless reproductions the remarkable pic- 
ture by Vibert of the prodigal son. It will be remembered 
that it is a triptich. The great central third is a picture of 
the prodigal wasting his substance in the far country. It is 
a revel. Beautifully habited, the boy, holding aloft a wine 
glass, is the central figure, about whom are grouped the danc- 
ing girls and revellers. The picture at the right is still of 
the boy — now in his degradation and misery. Finally, at the 
left is a picture of the return, in which, though the father ap- 
pears, the prodigal is vastly the more prominent. It illus- 
trates the strange and all but universal misconception. 

But our Lord's purpose made God the Father the subject 
of the parable. Let us think about this. 

Remember, first of all, that the primary purpose of the 
incarnation was the revelation of God. "No man hath seen 
God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the 
bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him" (lit. "led Him 
forth," John i: 18). Even the cross, and the complete atone- 
ment there accomplished, is but the supreme revelation of 
God in His altogether infinite love (John iii: 16; i John iii: 
16). But there is something dazzling in the rays of the 
cross. Such love is too high for us ; it overwhelms us. We 
feel as John did when he looked first at the throne. He 
could not describe Him who sat there. His description is like 
that of one who saw an insupportable radiance and who 
gropes for words — "like a jasper and a sard — like unto an 
emerald" (Rev. iv:2, 3). A poor account of the glory! It 
reminds one of most theories of the atonement. And so our 
Lord will paint one picture of the Father in such wise that 
we may forever know what our Father God is like. Think 
of it, Jesus paints a portrait of God, and we poor stupid 
word painters, and pigment painters, imagine He was giving 
us a portrait of a boy ! 



158 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

What, then, is the Father God Hke? He is "Hke a cer- 
tain man who had two sons," one of whom in utter selfish- 
ness left the father's home and broke the father's heart in 
the indulgences of a base sense-life, and had to be whipped 
by his very vices and their inevitable results into even think- 
ing of the home he had left. And then he did not think of 
his father, but only of the misery of the far country, and the 
abundance of the father's house. He was like the ass who 
only knew his master's crib — just a picture of every sinner 
who has preferred the life of the senses to the fellowship of 
the Father, till the life of the senses has palled and brought 
insupportable misery upon him. 

Now the question is : What will the Father God do with 
such a sinner coming with such a motive? The Father God 
will see him a long way off, and will run to meet him and 
kiss him. That is one portrait of the Father. Think of the 
other. It concerns a son who is outwardly correct and obe- 
dient, who has 

"Never strayed from the beaten path, 
Nor ever squandered his portion of gold," 

but whose heart is adamant. Living in the house with the 
Father, he has been farther from him than the senses and 
passions ever carried the poor prodigal — as far from the 
Father's heart as hell is from heaven. There is no character 
so ineffably and hopelessly vile as that of a snug pharisee. 
What will the Father God say to him ? "Son, all that I have 
is thine?" And the heart of the lesson is that this is our 
Father. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 159 

CHRIST TEACHES HUMILITY. 

(Mark x: 35-45.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The underlying weakness of most prayer (verse 35). — 
See below. 

2. The lam of exaltation in the kingdom (verses 36-44). 
— Suffering and glory are inseparable. The highest places 
in the kingdom are for those who have drunk deepest of 
Christ's cup of suffering for others, and have been most con- 
formed to Christ's death (John xviii: 11; 2 Cor. iv 17-18; 
Phil, iii: 10; Col. i: 24). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Not, if the lesson committee please, a lesson in humility, 
except in a very secondary sense, but, rather, a radiant light 
upon the pathway to the only true greatness. 

A great deal of sermonic condemnation has been visited 
upon the sons of Zebedee because of the ambitious request: 
"Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and 
the other on thy left hand, in thy glory." After all, they 
were only a little more outspoken than the rest of us. Before 
any man presumes to make a text for moralistic platitudes 
out of James and John let him be very sure that ambition 
and vanity and the itch for applause and greed of place are 
wholly cast out of his own heart. 

For, first of all, the theory of prayer propounded by these 
brothers is an exceedingly popular one. No theory concern- 
ing prayer is more widely taught to-day than that if we can 
only bring enough faith to bear on God. He must "do for 
us" whatever we desire. Nay, more, we are instructed that 
if we cannot come by this all victorious faith, the fault, the 



i6o THINGS NEW AND OLD 

most grievous fault, is ours. Our failure to harness omnipo- 
tence to our orphanage, or our school, or our mission, is 
proof positive that some secret sin is preying upon the very 
vitals of our spirituality — for Bildad the Shushite is always 
with us. "If thou wert pure and upright, surely now he 
would awake for thee and make the habitation of thy right- 
eousness prosperous" (Job viii:6). 

At bottom all this may cloak a lust for spiritual eminence, 
the true phrasing of which would be: ''Master, we would 
that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire." 
The very core of true prayer is utter submission to God's 
better wisdom, more perfect love. 

Note with care our Lord's answer. He by no means de- 
nies that there are real distinctions, veritable thrones of 
power in His kingdom. Rather He points out the way to 
them. But it is not the way of the world. The world's 
great ones exercise lordship over them. The whole desir- 
ableness of earthly greatness lies in the power to make others 
serve the possessors of that greatness. Strip a king of his 
authority, take from him his palaces, his armies, his servants, 
his pomp and state, and, except for the vanity of his empty 
title, he would fling away his crown. That kind of greatness 
Jesus neither desired nor offered to others. 

And yet He, too, was on His way to a throne, and an 
earthly throne at that (Matt, i: i; ii: i-6; Luke 1:31-33; 
Acts XV : 16, 17) ; and not only so, but part of His mission 
to earth was to gather out from amongst the sons of men 
those who will sit with Him on His throne (Rev. iii:2i; 
Luke xiv: 12, 19). Indeed, those very men, James and John, 
are to have thrones of peculiar distinction (Matt, xix: 
27,28). 

Now, then, was their petition amiss? No doubt their 
thought was of an immediate setting up of the Messianic 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES i6i 

kingdom, and of obtaining such a place in that kingdom as 
would be the gratification of a mere fleshly vanity. But, 
deeper than their misconception of the time of the manifesta- 
tion of the kingdom was their misconception of the moral 
conditions of that kingdom. They thought to gain its dis- 
tinctions by mere royal favor ; they had to learn that those 
distinctions are not in the gift of the King. His salvation 
is indeed a free gift, but every crown, every plaudit, must be 
earned. The kingdom distinctions are offered only as a 
reward for suffering and service (Luke xix: 12-19; i Cor. 
iii:ii-i5; ix 119-25; 2 Tim. iv : 7, 8; Rev. ii:io; Rom. 
viii: 18). This is the twofold lesson of co-crucification 
(verses 38, 39) with Jesus, and of accepting as the only 
highway to the throne the path of lowly service. It was 
Christ's own pathway, and along that via crucis must all pass 
who would sit at His right hand. 

THE PASSOVER. 

(Matt, xxvi: 17-30.) 
I. The Analysis, 

1. The guidcmce of Christ over our service extends to the 
smallest details (verses 17-19). — We are accustomed to refer 
the greater decisions of our lives to the Lord's better wisdom, 
but we are equally accustomed to decide in our own wisdom 
the smaller problems of service. When we remember that 
the most important consequences often follow apparently un- 
important actions, we should be warned to ask Him concern- 
ing even so small matters as: ''Where wilt thou that we 
prepare for thee to eat the passover?" 

2. The latent possibilities of evil in every heart (verses 
22-24). — See below. 

3. The meaning of the Lord's supper (verses 26-29). 
II 



i62 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The Passover and the Lord's Supper have very much in 
common; indeed, the latter feast may be regarded as the 
continuation, with larger meanings, of the earlier. Both 
alike are memorial — the one perpetuating the memory of the 
great deliverance in Egypt; the other of the great Deliverer 
of whom the Jewish passover lamb was but a type. Both 
commemorate a deliverance by blood alone (Exodus xii: 13; 
Heb. ix: 13-15; x: 10). Both speak of that which renders 
secure from judgment all, however guilty, who apply the 
blood by faith. Both present a lamb — ^the best expression 
in nature of innocency and non-resistance to evil. 

The parallels might be farther drawn out, but these must 
suffice. For our concern is not so much to expound the les- 
son as to find in it that truth which is either uniquely taught 
here, no other Scripture having it; or (which is equally to 
the point), that truth better taught here than elsewhere. So 
considered, must we not say that it lies in that sudden over- 
whelming wave of self-knowledge which forced to all their 
lips the awful question concerning the betrayer, "Lord, is it 
I?" Mark it well — this is a final question. Just as the tre- 
mendous miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ makes 
credible all other and lesser miracles, so this question, "Lord, 
is it I ?" if answered affirmatively render credible all the tes- 
timonies of Scripture concerning the incurable evil of the 
natural heart. Always, in all spheres, the greater includes 
the less. If we all, then, left to ourselves and to the unhin- 
dered work of our omn hearts, are capable of the consummate 
infamy and crime of the betrayal of Jesus Christ, then such 
small matters as theft, murder, adultery, covetousness, and 
the like may at once be acknowledged as latent possibilities 
in every heart of man (Mark vi: 21-23; Rom. iii: 10-18; 
Gal. v: 19-21). What is certain is that under the divine 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 163 

searchlight every one of the apostles saw the crowning crime 
to be possible to him ; and they were at least as good as we. 

"Lord, is it I?" It is related of a great preacher that, 
having to preach in the Massachusetts penitentiary, he was 
stricken dumb as he saw the long lines of fellow-men clad 
in the livery of shame, shamble, lock-step, to their places in 
the chapel. For he said, "How may I preach to these men? 
What know I of thieves and forgers and murderers ? I have 
done none of these things. Between them and myself is a 
chasm hell deep which I can neither overpass to get to them, 
nor they to get to me." And then God showed him his own 
natural heart. Down through layers of Puritan tradition, 
of moral habit, inherited from generations of God-fearing 
ancestors, the revealing ray shot and lighted up the real heart 
underneath, and the man of God saw there the possibility 
of every crime represented in the long rows of furtive-eyed, 
low-browed, bestial-faced humanity before him — and then 
he could preach to them as a sinful man to sinful men. 

'Xord, is it I ?" Every one of us must ask this question. 
We are in nothing better than Peter and James and John. 
"Lord, is it I?" Is it I who am now living in thy very 
presence, whose fellowship is my delight, whose service is 
my joy, whose words are my daily food — is it I who, in some 
unwatchful moment, am to betray thee? "Lord, is it I" who 
am reserved to the slow spiritual paralysis of going on with 
the outward form of communion and service after the glow- 
ing heart of it all is dead, who am at last in some kiss of 
final falseness to betray thee ? "Lord, is it I ?" 



i64 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

CHRIST'S TRIAL BEFORE PILATE. 

(Mark xv: 1-15.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. Jesus and Pilate (verses 1-5). — See below. 

2. Jesus and Barahhas (verses 6-15). — The foundation 
doctrine of redemption is vicarious sacrifice, and in all 
Scripture there is no better illustration of substitution. 
(i) Barabbas means "son of his father," and that describes 
us all. By nature we are all sons of our father, Adam. 
(2) Barabbas was justly condemned to die. He was not 
on probation to see if he would become a good man. The 
law had condemned him; he was awaiting execution (Rom. 
iii:i9; John iii 118-36). (3) He was unconditionally re- 
leased simply because another was dying in his place. (4) 
He did nothing whatever to secure his pardon but accept it. 

3. The Pinal Testing of Man Under Law (verses 6-15). 
— For centuries man had been under the testing of the law. 
What was the result ? The religious leaders of the nation to 
whom the law was given could not discern the Lord of 
glory, though they were expecting Him, and had a wonder- 
ful mosaic portrait of Him in the law and the prophets. 
Neither could they discern perfect moral loveliness, but 
clamored for the release of a murderer and the crucifixion 
of Jesus. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

It is not easy to say what is the deepest heart of things 
here. In a very supreme sense, of course, Jesus is the cen- 
tral figure, as in any scene in which He appears. But so 
incontestable is His prominence that often it is not the fact 
to be insisted upon — it goes without saying. Often the real 
question is : What will this or that man or body of men do 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 165 

concerning Jesus who is in the midst? For the Incarnate 
Word, Hke the written Word, is a discerner of the thoughts 
and intents of the heart, and His very presence compels dis- 
closures of what is passing in the inmost being of the by- 
stander. 

In this lesson the human interest centers upon Pontius 
Pilate. 

Think of Pilate. When a famous skeptic saw Munck- 
acsy's "Christ Before Pilate" he said with a sigh, after look- 
ing long at that great picture, "The artist has reversed the 
positions of these men ; he has painted, not Christ before 
Pilate, but Pilate before Christ." And so it was. One 
pities Pilate while condemning him. Compelled to admit 
the sinlessness of Jesus, and therefore urged by the law, 
by his conscience, and by the importunities of his wife to 
deal justly, he yet dealt unjustly. Even his inclination seems 
to have been strongly on the side of Jesus ; he "sought how 
he might set Him free." 

Do not imagine that there has been but one Pontius Pilate 
in the personal history of Jesus Christ. Alas, there have 
been countless millions of Pilates during the nineteen cen- 
turies in which Christ has been on trial in the forum of con- 
science and of reason. When Pilate said : "I find no fault 
in Him," he acknowledged a fact unique in human history. 
Of no other human being could that justly be said. Jesus 
alone among the sons of men has been without fault. All 
other goodness has been flawed with badness ; all other 
greatness has been linked with littleness; Jesus is the only 
sinless one. And so Pilate believed. So all men who know 
the story of His life have believed and do believe. 

So, believing, Pilate pronounced the sentence which sent 
Him to the cross ; so believing thousands are "crucifying to 
themselves the Son of God afresh." In what essential re- 



i66 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

spect do they differ from the Roman governor of infamous 
memory? 

Three possible courses were open before the first Pilate — 
have been and are open to all succeeding Pilates. The first 
course was the obvious one of evasion and delay. Catching 
at a word (Luke xxiii : 6) Pilate sought to shift upon Herod 
the decision for or against Jesus. But no, it was Pilate's 
question, and he could not pass it over to another. Again 
Jesus stood before Pilate; evasion had failed. Then two 
courses only remained — to act upon the logic of his own ad- 
mission of the faultlessness of Jesus, or, in deliberate viola- 
tion of conscience, to cast Jesus out. He chose the latter 
course. Why ? Because it seemed to accord with his present 
interests. To side with Jesus might, in the then precarious 
favor in which he stood with Caesar, mean the sacrifice of 
his worldly prospects. To incur at that time the enmity of 
the Jews might mean the sacrifice of his governorship, and 
he was not prepared to do right by Jesus at the cost of 
worldly prosperity. For the present prosperity of a ques- 
tionable business, for a dance, or a game at cards, or a sen- 
sual play, millions are rejecting that very Jesus whom they 
profess to admire and to find without fault. 



CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 

(Mark xv: 22-29.) 

I. The Analysis. 

1. The Sure Word of Prophecy Fiilfiiled (verses 22-29). 
— The twenty-second Psalm is a picture of the crucifixion 
painted with photographic minuteness of detail by the Spirit 
of God more than 1,000 years before the cross was set up. 

2. The inescapable Alternative (verses 26-32). — "Let 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 167 

Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross." 
"He saved others, Himself He cannot save." Most true! 
that was the actual alternative. He had descended from 
the cross; if He had permitted His own rescue by the 
twelve legions of angels, not a human soul would have 
seen the face of God in peace. 

3. The forsaken Son (verses 33-36). — See below. 

4. The Voluntary Death of Jesus (verse 37). — Make no 
mistake here. Jesus, even in the agonies of the cross, did 
not die of necessity. He "gave up" His spirit. 

5. The Rent Veil (verse 38). — Only one instructed in 
the tabernacle types can appreciate what that meant. Briefly, 
so long as the veil between the holy place and the holy of 
holies remained, the way into God's presence was impossible 
for all humanity save only one man, the high priest, and 
he could enter but once each year. The rent veil made "a 
new and living way" into God's presence for all men who 
would come by that way (John xiv:6; Heb. ix: 1-12; x: 
19-22) . 

6. A Convinced Spectator (verse 39) . 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The heart of this lesson must be found in an adequate 
answer to Jesus' desolate cry from the cross, "My God, my 
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The emphasis must be 
put on the personal pronoun "thou" and "me." "Why 
hast Thou forsaken Me?" The cry was appropriated by 
our Lord from the twenty-second Psalm, the Psalm of cru- 
cifixion (see verses 14-18), and in that Psalm the argument 
implied in the words of Jesus is more drawn out. "Our 
fathers trusted in thee ; they trusted, and thou didst deliver 
them ; they cried unto thee and were delivered." Why were 
the fathers, though faulty and sinful men, delivered when 
they cried unto Jehovah, when the sinless One, whose de- 



i68 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

light had ever been the father's will, was forsaken of Je- 
hovah in the extremity to which perfect obedience had 
brought Him? The difficulty is a real one, and any ade- 
quate theodicy must meet it. God is the moral Governor of 
the universe, and in all the ages of His rule over men He had 
but One sinless and perfectly holy subject — His own incar- 
nate Son, Jesus Christ. Why should the only human being 
who ever deserved the entire approval of God be abandoned 
to the whim of a despot, the insensate rage of a mob, the 
cold hatred of bigots, and, so abandoned, be forsaken of 
God in the extremity of a cruel death ? 

Let it be repeated — the difficulty is a real one. For, if 
mobs and despots and bigots are supreme in authority over 
perfect goodness, then God has resigned, or is a myth. 
There is no Supreme Ruler. 

For all other suffering save the suffering of Jesus Christ 
many reasons may be found in perfect harmony with both 
the goodness and justice of God. It is eternally right that 
God, in Plato's phrase, should "rivet together" sin and suf- 
fering; and furthermore, suffering is often, in the moral 
government of God, both purifying and remedial. Suffering 
is the crucible in which dross is burnt out, that the gold of 
God may be pure. 

" 'Tis suif ering sublimes the soul 

So perfect peace may come at last, 
And I shall know God's kind intent 
When these sharp pains are past." 

But in Jesus Christ was no dross of Adamic nature, no 
sin to which suffering might justly be "rivetted." And not 
only so, but even those who deserved to suffer were delivered 
if they cried to Jehovah. Amongst all [he suffering sons 
of men Jesus only was forsaken." Why? 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 169 

Men have thought the doom of the wicked heathen to 
reflect upon the moral government of God, but here, for- 
saken of God is no fihhy heathen sinner, but the holy Son of 
God. Let this be accounted for. 

And just here is the necessary test of any theory of the 
atonement — does it account for a holy Son forsaken in a 
cruel death? If Jesus dies only to afiford such a spectacle 
of moral grandeur as must forever enchain the hearts of 
men, and so transform human character, then the forsaking 
of him by God meant that God disowned the act, dissoci- 
ated Himself from it. If the cross meant only a supreme 
manifestation of divine love, then the Father could not have 
been absent. But if Christ were indeed the sacrifice for the 
guilt of the world; if, in infinite compassion toward man, 
and honor toward God, He was in one supreme act of suffer- 
ing doing right by the moral order of the universe, and 
putting everlasting shame and ignominy upon sin, then in- 
deed we may understand that God could not associate Him- 
self with human guilt, and that the forsaken One suffered 
the forsaking that we might never be forsaken. 



CHRIST RISEN. 

(Matt, xxviii: 1-15.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The Bfnpty Tomb (verses 1-6). — From the very mo- 
ment when Jesus "gave up the ghost" in expiating our sins 
His triumph began. His bones were not suffered to be 
broken ; His incorruptible body lay in a new tomb ; and, 
when the days in the bowels of the earth were ended an 
angel rolled back the stone that the true Rock might come 
forth. 



170 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

2. The First Message of the New Dispensation (verses 
7, 8). — The incarnation ministry of Jesus began with an in- 
vitation, ''come and see"; the resurrection began with a 
message, "go quickly and tell" (John i:39; Matt, xxviii: 

7). 

3. The Reward of Those Who ''Go Quickly and Tell" 
(verses 8-10). — "As they went, Jesus met them." 

4. The Impotence of Hatred (verses 11-15). — The fool- 
ish lie is repudiated to-day by all candid readers of the nar- 
rative ; the resurrection is believed by millions. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The crucifixion of Christ has many meanings, but they 
all converge upon one great fact — the expiation of man's 
guilt. But the resurrection of Christ, which also has many 
meanings, cannot be interpreted by a phrase or a definition. 
Let us, then, gather up into one view the greater meanings 
of the resurrection and find in them the heart of that great 
event. 

The resurrection of Christ is a fact. It has been said with 
truth that no event in human history is better authenticated. 
The evidence upon which an intelligent faith in the stupen- 
dous miracle of the resurrection of Christ rests is summar- 
ized by Paul in i Cor. xv : 4-8. ( i ) The Scriptures required 
the resurrection (Psa. xvi : 8, 11; Acts ii: 23-32). (2) 
After His resurrection He "was seen of Cephas" (Luke 
xxiv : 33, 34) . This is not only a touching illustration of the 
shepherd work of the risen Lord in seeking first a sheep that 
had strayed, but is an evidential fact of great importance. 
(3) "Then of the twelve." These were the men who knew 
Him best, whom it would have been impossible to deceive. 
Remember, too, that one of the twelve, Thomas, was utterly 
incredulous and was convinced only by actual evidence. (4) 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES i;i 

"After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at 
once." The witnesses were not only persons who knew the 
Lord intimately, but they were also numerous, and of a 
character which excludes the thought of imposture. (5) 
"After that he was seen of James." It will be remembered 
that James was the Lord's brother. (6) "Then (again) of 
all the apostles," The fact of the resurrection does not rest 
upon one fleeting or phantasmal view of the risen Christ, 
but upon many and long continued interviews with intervals 
for reflection. (7) "And last of all he was seen of me also." 
The testimony of Paul is of final and unanswerable weight. 
He was a prejudiced and unwilling w^itness; he saw the 
risen Lord years after His ascension ; he "suffered the loss 
of all things" because convinced that Jesus was indeed risen 
from the dead. 

The resurrection of Jesus affirms the truth of His claims. 
If Jesus had been but a self-deceived enthusiast honestly 
supposing Himself to be the Son of God and the Messiah, 
His death would have ended His claims, for He Himself 
appealed beforehand to His resurrection as the one great 
"sign" by which His demand upon the faith and obedience 
of the world should rest. God could not have raised from 
the dead an impostor, or a mere religious enthusiast. 

The resurrection of Christ confirms our justification. He 
went into death under the burden of our sins ; that He rose 
from the dead is the evidence that His sacrifice was accepted 
on our behalf. 

The resurrection of Christ is the proof of the believer's 
resurrection. "If Jesus died and rose again, even so, them 
also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him" (i 
Thess. iv : 14) . This certainly it is which gives us triumph 
even in the brief of bereavement; because of this we "sor- 
row not as others, which have no hope," for "then shall be 



172 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

brought to pass the saying which is written, death is swal- 
lowed up in victory." 



CHRIST THE LIFE AND LIGHT OF MEN. 

(John i: 1-18.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Eternal Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. — The 
words of John's sublime introduction admit of no qualifica- 
tion nor evasion. They assert in the most positive terms 
not only His preexistence, which some amongst Unitarians 
accept, but His absolute Deity (verses 1-4). 

2. The Uncomprehended One (verses 5, 10, 11). — What 
a proof of the total alienation of the world from God, that 
it did not know the Creator when He appeared. And this, 
be it remembered, was the religious world — the very people 
who had the Scriptures ! Just as the world of culture knew 
not God by ''wisdom," so the Jewish world knew not God 
by religion. 

3. The Forerunner and His Mission (verses 6, 7, 8, 15). 
— It cannot be too clearly held that John the Baptist was not 
a preacher of the Gospel, but a herald of Him who was to 
create the Gospel. 

4. The Conditions of the Nezv Sonship (verses 12, 13). 
— If no other passage or teaching of Scripture contradicted 
the current teaching that all men are sons of God, these 
verses would suffice. That all men are by creation the 
"offspring" of God, that is, different essentially from the 
beasts, is most true (Acts xvii : 20), but "sonship" is a word 
of position and of relationship. All the born ones are 
''offspring of God" — only the born again ones are the sons 
of God. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 173 

5. The Incarnation (verse 14). — The modern teaching 
is that in the incarnation "flesh" was first, and that after- 
ward this Man became one in whom God became manifest 
in a larger sense than had ever been true of any other man. 
But the Scripture says that the Word was first, and "be- 
came" flesh. 

6. The New Dispensation (verse 17). — The disjunctive 
conjunction "but" shows the relation of the Mosaic to the 
Christian dispensation. The latter is in contrast to the first. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

What mortal shall assume to say what is the heart of 
things in this lesson ? Bengel called these verses "the sanc- 
tum sanctorum of the Bible." They hold such great doc- 
trines as the personality and transcendence of God, as against 
pantheism ; His unity, as against polytheism ; His plurality, 
as against unitarianism ; His true incarnation, as against all 
forms of gnosticism, whether ancient or modern; and His 
power of self-revelation, as against agnosticism. 

But all of these stupendous truths are also taught else- 
where in Scripture. We are not, therefore, to find the cure 
of this lesson in the fact of their restatement here. Is it 
not to be found in the one word, revelation ? And, since the 
revelation is unto the end that God may be known and wor- 
shipped, must we not say that the heart of this lesson is the 
personal revelation of God? 

There are, then, three thoughts for our learning : 

First. The revelation of a personal God. Our God is 
neither a theological abstraction, a mere bundle of attributes, 
nor yet a scientific abstraction, a mere form of Force ; nor 
yet a philosophical abstraction, a Somewhat coextensive 
with, and indistinguishable from, matter. He is a Person, 
and we were made in His likeness and image. 



174 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Secondly. He reveals Himself in this final and supreme 
way in a Person. The Word, who in the beginning was 
(not became, or began) God, incarnated Himself in a Man 
who began a human life as we began ours, and lived for 
thirty-three years a divine life in human conditions, not 
heavenly conditions. 

Thirdly. This divine life, under human conditions, was 
to the end that we who are persons might know, love, wor- 
ship and obey the divine Person God. Now, any reverent 
human person may thus come into personal relations with 
the divine Person. In no other way could we really know 
Him. All previous revelations were about Him, the per- 
sonal revelation was Himself. But in revealing Himself He 
also revealed the perfect man. What is God like? Like 
Christ. What is perfected humanity like? Like Christ. 
Ah, how limited and poor is our vision of divine truth! 
Have we really believed that redemption is not only from 
the immeasurable debasement of humanity in hell, but unto 
the conformation of humanity to Christlikeness in glory? 



THE WITNESS OF JOHN THE BAPTIST TO 
JESUS. 

(John i: 19-34.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. John's Self -abnegation (verses 19-23). — No finer ex- 
ample can be found in all Scripture of the right relation 
toward the public of a servant of God. John would neither 
take the place belonging of right to Christ in the public 
mind, nor would he claim for himself any other exalted 
position. To be a "voice" was enough for him. 

2. John's First Testimony (verses 24-29). — Questioned 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 175 

as to his authority for introducing a new ordinance, viz: 
the baptism of repentance, John connects his actions with 
his work as the forerunner of One mightier than himself. 

3. John's Second Testimony (verse 29). — See "Heart." 

4. John's Third Testimony (verses 32, 33). — John had 
seen the convincing fact of the descent upon Jesus of the 
Holy Spirit. 

5. John's Fourth Testimony (verse 34). — ''This is the 
Son of God." The student should add to these John's testi- 
mony, as reported by Matthew, against the formal religion 
of the time, and to Jesus as the baptizer with the Holy 
Ghost. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The great word of this lesson is, the word "witness." 
John was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of the 
Light. We have, therefore, as the open heart of the lesson 
the word witness ; and this in three ways : — witness bearing 
as the method of the new dispensation of "grace and truth," 
which Christ brought in; Christ Himself as the object of 
the witnessing; and one particular fact about Christ as the 
message of the witnessing. 

First. The idea of building up the kingdom of God by 
means of testimony was one of the most striking of the new 
ideas of the new dispensation. Mosaism was built up by 
the natural increase of a family, the family of Abraham. 
Every Hebrew child was in the Theocracy just by virtue of 
having Hebrew parents. The Law never had a missionary. 
From Sinai came no command: "Go ye into all the earth 
and preach the law to every creature." But witnessing is 
the peculiar method of this dispensation. From the ascen- 
sion to this day, Christ has no other way of winning men 
but by the testimony of Spirit-filled witnesses (Acts i: 8). 



176 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Secondly. That testimony concerns a Person, not pri- 
marily, an ethical system, nor even a body of doctrine, still 
less a church, but Himself, Jesus the Christ. At no point 
has the church more conspicuously failed in her responsibil- 
ity than just there. Rome presents an ecclesiastical system, 
Protestantism a thousand theological systems, in the place 
of Jesus Christ. The Lord made Himself the one issue. 
"Whom say ye that I the Son of man am ?" ''Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting 
life." "He that hath the Son hath Hfe, and he that believeth 
not the Son hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
him." 

Thirdly. The message about Christ centers with tremen- 
dous emphasis on one definite act — His sacrificial death. 
Read the twenty-one Christian Epistles, seeking carefully 
for the references to His earth-life as the emphatic fact 
concerning Him. You will find five brief, unemphatic pas- 
sages. Read them again for references to His atoning death. 
You will find them by scores. Then enter the churches and 
hear the sermons ; or read the so-called Christian literature 
of the day. How often will you find the chief emphasis put 
upon the atoning death of Christ? Is it not time to come 
back to the Apostolic testimony? "Behold the Lamb of 
God that taketh away the sin of the world.*' 



HIS FIRST DISCIPLES. 

(John i: 35-51.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Very First Disciples (verses 36-39). — They heard 
a true testimony ; they followed ; they abode. 

2. The First ''Finder'' (verses 40-42). — The man who 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 177 

had heard, followed, and abode, quite naturally ran to tell. 
Have you complied with the three conditions? We do not 
know that Andrew became a great preacher, but that day 
he brought a great preacher to Jesus. 

3. The Great ''Finder" at Work (verse 43). — You are 
going to meet many a soul in heaven whose testimony will 
be, "No man cared for my soul, save the Man of Calvary 
only." Philip, the Jew with the Gentile name, seems to have 
been a pretty dull disciple (John xiv : 8, 9) ; perhaps no one 
but Jesus would have thought him worth finding. 

3. The Third "Finder"' (verses 44-46) . — Note his simple 
but sublime testimony: "We have found HIM." Philip 
could not answer Nathaniel's hard question, but he could 
suggest a good way out : "Come and see." 

4. The New Testimony to Christ (verses 47-49) . — John 
had already witnessed to Jesus as the Son of God; Na- 
thaniel adds, as an instructed Jew who knew the Davidic 
covenant (2 Sam. vii:8-i6), "the King of Israel." 

5. The Promise of Greater Things (verses 50, 51). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

We have, first, a precious lesson in Christian service. It 
began that day by Jordan in a certain specific testimony, 
"Behold the Lamb of God !" Did you ever notice that John 
the Baptist never explains his messages? That day, so 
significant as the day which saw the first disciples gathered 
to Christ, John did not explain what he meant by calling 
Christ "the Lamb of God." Every Jew knew that he was 
pointing to Jesus as the fulfiller of the sacrificial types — 
knew that every lamb sacrificed from the first Passover till 
that day pointed forward to a coming One. The applica- 
tion is obvious : the first secret of successful service is to 
point to Christ as the Sacrifice, the sin-bearer, the atone- 
12 



178 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ment maker. All true knowledge of Christ begins at the 
cross. Afterward we may go back to the cradle, and follow 
the sinless feet, and contemplate the great example. 

And the second lesson in successful service is that only 
one who has been with Jesus can win men to Him. One 
may be saved and yet know but little of the blessedness of 
communion with Christ. Personal faith is commonly the 
result of the testimony of another. John bore witness to 
Christ as the Lamb of God, and John and Andrew followed 
Him. But more: they ''abode with Him." Belief made 
them disciples, abiding made them soul seekers, and soul 
winners. 

The third lesson in service is that it should begin with 
what is nearest. Andrew went after his own brother, Simon. 
Too many people whose hearts begin to be stirred toward 
service, quiet their aroused consciences with great plans of 
of what they will do when they are somewhere else. Mr. 
Moody used to tell his boys and girls at Mount Hermon 
and Northfield that one who could do no service right 
where they might happen to be, would not do service any- 
where. And note that Andrew was not satisfied with telling 
his brother about Jesus. He ''brought him to Jesus." 

The fourth lesson is that Jesus Himself is actively at 
work with His servants. It was Jesus who found Philip. 
The Lord is constantly making converts. Many a saint in 
glory owes his conversion to no human agency. A Bible, a 
sincere reader of the Bible, the risen Christ, and the Holy 
Spirit — these are enough. 

Underneath the last seven verses of the lesson is a won- 
derful dispensational picture upon which there is no room to 
dwell. It is prophetic of the future conversion of the Jewish 
remnant in the last days, and of the national conversion of 
Israel after our Lord's return. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 179 

THE FIRST MIRACLE IN CANA. 

(John ii: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Social Christ (verses i, 2). — With a world's sal- 
vation for His mission, and with but little more than three 
years for testimony, our blessed Lord could find time, and 
think it worth while, to share and increase the innocent 
social joy of a wedding. A lesson, surely, to those who 
think such things "wordly." The definition of ''the world" 
in the bad sense in which that term is used in Scripture 
needs enlarging in the minds of many truly earnest, but 
narrow minded Christians. The "world" in the bad sense 
is that kingdom of Satan here in the earth, the badge of 
which is ostentation, or the desire for things not for the 
ministry there may be in them to man's manifold being, 
but for mere display, pride, and conspicuity; and the re- 
wards of which are present wealth, power, or position. At 
the heart of it lies self -exaltation. Of that world no follower 
of the Lord Jesus should ever be a part. But to condemn 
eating and drinking as part of a large and beautiful social 
life, and to reprobate surrounding such occasions as wed- 
dings, birthdays, anniversaries and the like with joyous 
companionship, is to be holier than Christ, and to go back 
to John the Baptist. 

2. The Manifestation of His Glory (verses 3-11). — See 
"Heart." 

II. The Heart of the Lesson, 

The heart of this lesson is plainly indicated in verse 11. 
The "sign" was a manifestation of "His glory." 

Perhaps there is no more difficult word in Scripture than 
the word "glory." And, as in the case of the word "world," 



i8o THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the difficulty arises from the diverse uses of the word. 
Sometimes it means outward splendor, merely, as, *'The 
kingdoms of this world and the glory of them" (Luke iv : 6) . 
Sometimes the word is used of that superhuman radiance 
which announces the immediate presence of Deity (Ex. xvi : 
id; I Kings viii: ii). Sometimes the word is used of the 
people's praises of God (Matt. xv:2i). But always the 
fundamental idea is the manifestation of Deity in some or 
all of His excellences. We, for example, glorify God when 
we make known in life or testimony "the excellences of 
Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous 

light." 

With this explanation we are prepared to see how, in 
making the water wine Christ "manifested His glory." It 
was a creative act, and creative power belongs to God 
alone. The "sign," however, had a purpose beyond the 
demonstration of the fact that in Jesus of Nazareth God was 
Himself among men. In the structure of John's Gospel 
the announcement of a new truth is commonly accompanied 
by an illustrative miracle. In John viii : 12, for example, 
our Lord says, "I am the light of the world." In the suc- 
ceeding chapter He performed the illustrative miracle of 
giving sight to a man born blind. 

So here He prefaces the great teaching on the new birth 
by turning water into wine. The "sign" at the wedding 
feast, therefore, represents Him as the Author of the new 
creation (i Cor. xv: 45-49). 

Still another "glory" of our Lord was manifested at the 
wedding feast. Here, at the outset of His great work, He 
revealed Himself as the social Christ. It is the character- 
istic of the new dispensation that all innocent human joy 
is sanctified in Christ. John the Baptist, the last of the Old 
Testament prophets and saints, was an ascetic. He came 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES i8i 

neither eating nor drinking. Christ as He said of Himself, 
came eating and drinking. He was constantly found in 
human habitations. He sought the family. Puritanism has 
woefully hidden the social Christ. 



NICODEMUS. 

(Johniii: 1-15.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The Candid Inquirer (verses i, 2). — Nicodemus has 
been, not without reason, called "the best natural character 
in Scripture." 

2. The Necessity, Mystery and Means of the New Birth 
(verses 3-15). 

3. The Outrageous Omission. — The august International 
Lesson Committee not infrequently does foolish things, and 
as frequently leaves wise things undone; but to stop this 
lesson short of verse 16 is inexplicable. That verse is the 
central verse of the Bible, "the Gospel in little," as Luther 
called it. There certainly is a personal Satan, and in his 
activity he often beguiles good and well meaning men. He 
hates John iii : 16. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The heart of this lesson lies, I think, in the two impera- 
tives of verses 7 and 14. "Ye MUST be born again." "The 
Son of Man MUST be lifted up." 

First. The imperative of life — "ye must be born again." 
There is no going around a divine imperative. The "must's" 
of God are final. Let us not suppose that they are there- 
fore arbitrary. Not one of the divine imperatives is arbi- 
trary. Something "must" be, not because of a whim of the 



i82 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Sovereign of the universe, but because it could not be other- 
wise in a moral universe. 

The imperative of the new birth is a "must" because of 
two facts in the being of fallen man. He is spiritually dead, 
and "must" have life if he is to know and enjoy God (Eph. 
ii : I ; Col. ii : 13 ; Eph. iv : 11) ; and his nature is depraved. 
It is not to be understood that man by the fall has lost im- 
mortality, but only that he is "alienated from the life of 
God" It is that life which our Lord calls "eternal life"; 
eternal being a word of quality, not of duration, primarily. 
Eternal life is imparted by the new birth, and without that 
life man could not know God (John xvii: 3). 

The second reason why man "must" be born again is that 
his human Adamic nature is hopelessly corrupted. It is 
"flesh." What Christ, who knew what was in man (John 
ii : 25), thought of the old nature may be learned from Mark 
vii: 21-23. By the new birth a new nature is imparted (i 
Peter i : 23 ; 2 Peter 1:4). 

Equally unavoidable is the second of these divine impera- 
tives, the imperative of death. For man, whom Jesus came 
to save, was not only "dead," "alienated from the life of 
God," and incurably corrupt by nature, but he was also per- 
sonally a guilty violator of the divine law. He was a sin- 
ner. He had despised the holy will of God, and was a rebel 
in a moral universe. A holy God could not ignore the 
guilt of man, nor make light of it. Something "must" be 
done to express the divine abhorrence of sin ; to express 
the divine love for the sinner ; to liberate the "eternal life" 
which was in Christ (John i:4), so that it might be im- 
parted to the redeemed (John xii : 24) ; to pay to the broken 
law of God its inescapable penalty of death (Rom. vi : 23 ; 
Gal. iii: 16, 18), and to draw Godward those who were lost 
(John xii: 32). 



NEW l^ESTAMENT STUDIES 183 

And all of this, and who shall say how much more, was 
wrought by the lifting up of the Son of man. 



AT JACOB'S WELL. 

(John iv:5-i4.) 
L The Analysis. 

(i) The Human Christ, verses 1-2. Our adorable Lord 
was as truly human as He was truly Divine. As we are 
wearied in His service, though never wearied of it, so was 
He in His Father's service. 

(2) The lesson in wayside service, verses 7-26. With 
their not common fatuousness the lesson committee fail to 
give us the whole of even this brief story, so we must go be- 
yond the strict lesson limits to get it. Note:: — (a) That 
weariness does not keep the model Servant from working. 
(&)That the Wise Servant began at some point of common 
interest, verse 7. (c) That He refused to be drawn into a 
sectarian discussion, verses 8-10. {d) That He responded 
to the woman's first gleam of personal interest by touching 
her conscience, verses 16-18. {e) That He swept aside cere- 
monialism and mere religiousness as the resource of an 
awakened conscience, verses 19-24. Too many moderns 
would have said: "Join the church, and live right." (/) 
That He revealed Himself as the alone resource for a sinner, 
verses 25-26. 

IL The Heart of the Lesson. 

The heart of this lesson is to be found in the contrast be- 
tween Jacob's well and the upspringing fountain. Jacob's 
well is the Law, the old order of laborious ceremonial, the 
old legal system of personal merit by obedience. The water 



i84 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

in the well was good, but the well was deep (verse ii). 
Every drop gained from that well cost effort. Bucket by 
bucket, a little at a time — that was the law of the Well at its 
very best. But Jacob's well had come to stand for mere tra- 
ditionalism in religion, for mere intolerance of new light. 
*'Art thou greater than our father Jacob ?" was the woman's 
answer to him who was speaking of the upspringing water. 
As a matter of fact, Jacob was the father of the Samaritans 
in no real sense. The Samaritans of our Lord's time were a 
hybrid race, outside of real Judaism. Jesus was careful to 
set that right: "Ye worship ye know not what; we know 
what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews." Spiritually, 
the Samaritans drawing water from Jacob's well were pre- 
cisely in the position of modern Gentile believers who put 
themselves under the Law; conceiving that as Christians, 
the Law is their rule of life. That is the very error against 
which the Spirit by Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians. 

The upspringing fountain is, first of all, the Holy Spirit 
Himself, indwelling the behever; and then the nine-fold 
"fruit of the spirit," which is "love, joy, peace, long-suffer- 
ing, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." 
And that fruit of the Spirit is Christian character. Under 
the Law, character is sought to be formed by habits of 
obedience to a rule of life — thou shalt, and thou shalt not. 
The formula is : "Our choices make our habits, and our 
habits form our characters." That is drawing water out of 
Jacob's well. It is that "other" Gospel, of which the Apostle 
speaks in Galatians. It is Samaritanism — that is, neither 
pure Judaism nor pure Christianity. 

Christianity is not a kind of pump in Jacob's well, helping 
us to draw life out of the law ; it is the Spirit of life, and the 
life of the Spirit implanted in, and outflowing from the be- 
liever himself. That is the least understood fact of Chris- 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 185 

tianity to-day, after nineteen hundred years of preaching. 
"The water that I shall give shall be in him a fountain of 
water, springing up into everlasting life." 

The contrast between Jacob's well and the upspringing 
fountain is just the contrast between the VII of Romans 
and the VIII. In the former, a believer is in an agony of 
effort to do something under the law of merit, the goodness 
of God. In the later, a believer is, by the indwelling Spirit, 
made "free from the law," and so finds that the righteous 
ness of the law is fulfilled (not "by," but) "in" him as he 
walks after the Spirit. 

It is very remarkable that the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
after stating in the first three chapters the exalted position 
into which the believer is brought by grace through faith, in 
turning to the walk that should characterize one in such a 
position, gives as the test of the walk, and as that which 
gives it its distinctive character, not the law, but the new 
position : "Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are 
called" ; "For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and 
righteousness and truth." 

The transformation of Christian experience from the 
average one of painfully drawing blessings out of Jacob's 
well, to the triumphant one of bearing the fruit of the Spirit, 
is effected by two acts, one of faith, one of the will. The 
act of faith is just to believe that the Spirit does dwell within 
(i Cor. vi : 19). The act of the will is just to live in yield- 
edness to the Spirit. 



i86 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

THE SECOND MIRACLE OF CANA. 

(John iv: 43-54.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The prophet without honor, verses 43-44. Note why 
He was without honor ; He was a Prophet. A prophet was 
never sent to Israel except in times of declension, and every 
prophet's message was one of stern rebuke. 

2. The miracle at Cana, verses 46-54. See Heart of the 
Lesson. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The power of the Word of the Lord is the emphatic fact 
of this lesson. Many were healed by our Lord's touch and 
presence, but the healing of the daughter of the Syro-Phce- 
nician woman, and of the Nobleman's son, were wrought by 
the Word of an absent Lord. Doubtless this has its dispen- 
sational significance, for these suppliant parents were Gen- 
tiles, and the great Gentile church is being called out and 
saved by the preaching of the Word of a Lord, who is, per- 
sonally at the right hand of the Father, and invisible, save to 
the eye of faith. But we are concerned with the practical 
rather than the dispensational aspects of truth. 

So considered, we have here the power of the Word in two 
ways. And first, the power of the Word to heal. We are 
saved simply by believing in Christ as He is presented 
through the Word of God. "He that believeth not God 
hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record 
that God gave of his Son" (i John v: 10). We are *'born 
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the 
Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (i Peter 
1:23). Apart from the Word of God, we know nothing 
whatever about Christ. It is true that the believer's ex- 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 187 

perience accords with the word, for : "He that beHeveth on 
the Son of God hath the witness in himself," but even after 
behef, we still need the Word to interpret to us that very 
experience which the Lord gives to his own. 

There is great need amongst Christian workers of a re- 
vival of faith in the power of the simple Word of God. His 
promises concerning the Word have ever been confirmed by 
his providences. Multitudes have been convicted and con- 
verted by the silent power of the Scriptures, quite apart 
from argument or emotional appeal. 

And the incident recorded in our lesson marks another 
way in which the Word has power. The healing Word, *'Go 
thy way; thy son liveth," was spoken at one o'clock P. M. 
Capernaum, where the healing took effect, was about twenty 
miles away. The late Prof. Curtis rode from Cana to Cap- 
ernaum easily in a little more than four hours. The Noble- 
man might have been back and by his son's side by five 
o'clock, yet we read that it was the next day before he went 
home. What kept that father, but a moment before Jesus 
spake the life-restoring Word so filled with fear and dis- 
tress about his son, quietly at Cana all those hours ? Noth- 
ing, clearly, but a new born faith in the power of Jesus' 
word, and a new born love for Jesus Himself. Noth- 
ing less than this could have kept that father from the 
bedside of his son. 

And here again the experience of millions confirms the 
truth of the incident ; for the Christian's assurance rests on 
the word of God and on that alone. We are saved by be- 
lieving in Christ according to the Word of God, and we have 
quietness and assurance by believing what the Word says 
about the finished work of Christ. When the Word says : 
"Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of 
sins ; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, 



i88 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses," 
the heart of the believer has assurance. 



AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA. 

(John v: 1-15.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. This lesson does not fall into divisions, but is one 
scene, one act. For the spiritual significance of the inci- 
dent of the lesson see ''Heart," &c. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

There is much in this beautiful lesson that presses for the 
first place in relative importance. Dispensationally, we 
have, as in the scene by Jacob's Well, law and grace brought 
into contrast. Perhaps this scene by Bethesda marks even 
a stronger contrast. Bethesda would have been effectual if 
only the infirm man could have met the conditions. Alas, 
the very infirmity which brought him to the pool, kept him 
from getting down into it. 

When the lawyer in Luke x asked what he must do to 
inherit eternal life, Jesus told him to do the Law and he 
should live; but the Law says, *'Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all 
thy strength, and with all thy mind," and neither that lawyer 
nor any other human being save Jesus ever did that for one 
fraction of a second. The trouble is not with the Law, 
which is "holy, just and good," but with man who is unholy, 
unjust and evil. The Law "made nothing perfect" (Heb. 
vii: 19), because it was "weak through the flesh." 

And in many minds law and grace are confused hopelessly 
just at the point which troubled the infirm man by the pool 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 189 

of Bethesda : "Sir, I have no man, when the water is trou- 
bled, to put me into the pool." Galantianized Protestantism 
teaches that Christ comes to be that missing "man" — that 
He helps us into the pool. But here He does nothing of the 
kind. By His own power, He makes the man whole and 
then sends him away from the pool. Later, meeting him in 
the temple, He tells him to cease living a sinful life. But this 
is not the heart of this lesson. 

Again, a most striking illustration is here given of the 
hardening and blinding effects of putting the sense of sacred- 
ness at the wrong place. With the Jews, as with the Pur- 
itans, the Sabbath was the supremely sacred thing; with 
Jesus Christ, humanity was the supremely sacred thing. 
All sense of joy in the restoration of the infirm man was 
swamped by the fear that the Sabbath had been desecrated. 
It never occurred to them that, in Jesus' phrase, "The Sab- 
bath was made for man"; that man, not institutions, holds 
the first place in the thought of God. I have known a great 
evangelist refuse to speak to a crowded meeting, because to 
reach it he must use a public conveyance on the Lord's Day. 

But it seems to me that the deepest thing in this wonder- 
ful lesson is in those words of the healed man : "And he that 
was healed wist not who it was." The unrecognized Christ 
is in the heart of this lesson. It was the pathetic fact in the 
earth life of Christ that men were so ready to accept his 
blessings, so slow to recognize him. It has been the pathetic 
fact in the history of Christendom. Every distinctive bless- 
ing of Christian civilization as distinguished from pagan 
civilizations, has come directly from Christ, and yet the 
enormous majority of civilized men to-day do not see that 
the very things which make life endurable to them are His 
gifts. 

Vastly more pathetic is the fact that to so many of His 



iQO THINGS NEW AND OLD 

own who are in the world, He is an unrecognized Christ. 
Like the Emmaus disciples, we walk with holden eyes, and 
though He is by our side, we do not know that it is He. 
Like those disciples, we are puzzled or made sad by His 
providences, and speak of disappointments of our faith more 
than of faith's victories. 



THE MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES. 

(John vi: 1-14.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. Jesus leaving Galilee, verse i. 

2. The gathering multitudes, verses 2-5. 

3. The incomparable Teacher, verse 3 (see parallel ac- 
counts in Matt., Mark, Luke). 

4. The hungering multitudes, verse 5. 

5. The impotent disciples, verses 5-9. See "Heart." 

6. Feeding the multitude, verses 10, 11. 

7. Gathering the fragments, verses 12-14. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Christ commands the impossible ; with Christ the impossi- 
ble becomes possible — that is manifestly the core truth here. 
It is a parable in action, this feeding of the five thousand; 
a parable of interpretation, for it explains the whole mystery 
of the co-working of God and man ; a parable of this dis- 
pensation, for it illustrates the method of the dispensation. 

Christ commands the impossible. Five barley loaves and 
two small fishes zvere too few for so many. When our Lord 
said: ''Give ye them to eat" (Matt, xiv: 16), He told them 
to do what they were wholly unable to do. The enterprises 
of Christ are all humanly impossible. When he ordered 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 191 

twelve unlettered, untravelled fishermen and Galilean vil- 
lagers to assault Judaism in its central stronghold, Jerusalem, 
and then to attack the heathen world system, a system organ- 
ized by the immense skill and experience of Satan, and in- 
trenched in the high places of the earth. He flung a handful 
of spring water against Niagara. And His ethic is just as 
impossible. When He tells us that we are perfectly identi- 
fied with Himself, and that therefore we are to ''Walk 
worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing," He commands what 
men cannot do. The yoke of the laW, which neither the 
Apostles nor their fathers were able to bear, was child's 
play compared to it. 

When His Word requires that our hearts shall hold an un- 
ceasing song of gratitude, and be filled with humility (Eph. 
v: 19-21), He requires the impossible. 

But with Him, all this becomes so possible as to seem ax- 
iomatic. Five barley loaves and two small fishes plus the 
creative power of Almighty God, are enough, not for five 
thousand daily, but the whole world. Twelve unlearned 
men plus the Holy Ghost, are enough to deliver souls out of 
the power of the very Sanhedrin itself, and, in three cen- 
turies, to drive heathenism from the throne of the world. A 
saved sinner, weak as water in himself, and the sport of the 
demons, may, in the power of the same Spirit, beat back 
Satan, and (an even greater victory) dethrone self and en- 
throne Christ over the kingdom within. 

And note: Doubtless Christ could have set aside the 
human instrumentality entirely. His own hands were suf- 
ficient for the task that day, and all the days, and all the 
tasks ever since. Not only so. He could have used the 
angels. It was not imperative that He should have us, but 
it was His plan. He made it part of the eternal counsels 
that as the salvation of mankind was entrusted to a Man, so 



192 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the tidings of that salvation should be carried to man by 
man. But from the first messengers to the last, it is part of 
the plan that the power shall be of God. The sense of this 
is almost the lost sense of the churches of Christ. Organ- 
ization, money, high training — these, which are but the 
loaves and fishes of the great enterprise, have been made 
the ground of confidence. Like the prophet's servant on 
Dothan, we need to have our eyes opened to see that the 
mountain round about us is full of the horses and chariots 
of the fire of the Lord. 



AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 

(John vii: 37-46.) 
I. The Analysis. 

(i) The cry of Christ. (See "Heart".) 

(2) A theological controversy (verses 40-42). 

(3) The usual result of theological controversy (verses 

43-44). 

(4) A great truth (verse 46). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The cry of the Lord is, of course, the open heart of this 
lesson. "If any man thirst." All of the invitations of 
Scripture are addressed to states of soul. "Come unto me 
all ye that are weary and heavy laden." "Ho, every one 
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." There is a cry in 
this lesson which should find many a heart in this day. 

Note the time of the cry: "In the last day, that great 
day of the feast." Do you see? Jesus waited till all the 
ceremonial was over ; till all the sacrifices had been ofi^ered ; 
till all the elaborate ritual had been performed; till all the 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 193 

processionals, and recessionals, and antiphonies had been 
sung and chanted — then He stood forth and Hfted up His 
cry, *4f any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." 
He said, in effect : "If among you there is one whose soul 
cannot be satisfied with ceremonials, and pretty religiosities ; 
with that which at its freshest and best is but the shell and 
outer garmenture of faith, and at its worst is faith's shroud 
and coffin; if there are any among you who want realities 
and not shows and shadows, "let him come unto me and 
drink." "Out of his inmost being shall flow rivers of living 
water." 

Our Lord was speaking of the Spirit "whom they that 
believe on Him should receive." In due time the Spirit 
came, and now every believer has the Spirit, for the Spirit 
is given upon the alone condition of faith, but who would 
say that all believers give evidence of the outflowing rivers 
of spiritual power and blessing? The difficulty is that, 
having the Spirit, believers are not filled with the Spirit 
(Eph. V. 18). And they are not filled with the Spirit be- 
cause, satisfied with the externalities of religion, with church 
membership, church going, and formal and mechanical ser- 
vice, they do not meet the Saviour's condition — they do not 
"thirst." 

There are three conditions which we must meet if we are 
to know the "rivers." The first is "thirst." It is to be 
divinely discontented with any life but the highest and best. 
It is to turn away from forms to realities. The second 
condition is, "come." Not a sinner's coming for salvation, 
but a saint's coming for power and blessing. It is just 
going back to Jesus to fall at His blessed feet in confession 
of powerlessness, uselessness. And the third condition is, 
"drink." Very many meet the first and second conditions 
13 



194 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

who draw back in unbelief at the third. To "drink" is to 
receive by faith. 

The snare of ''feeHng" is doubtless the great hindrance 
to faith in this vital matter. Athirst for the deeper, more 
vital things of the life in Christ, we come to Him for "help." 
There is no definiteness in our quest. We go away com- 
forted, but we do not definitely receive the filling with the 
Spirit by that same simple act of faith through which we 
received Christ. Or, better instructed, we go to Him defi- 
nitely for the filling, and then wait for feeling. Filling and 
feeling are not the same words, do not mean the same thing. 
We have heard or read some thrilling experience which 
was accompanied with great emotion, and we seek the emo- 
tion instead of the Spirit. Not feeling it, we conclude that 
we have somehow missed the way. Take the filling by 
naked faith, thank God that you are filled, and expect the 
power to be manifested, as you touch other lives. 

THE SLAVERY OF SIN. 

(John viii : 31-40.) 

I. The Analysis. 

(i) The test of discipleship is continuous. All who 
truly are disciples do continue. 

(2) Truth or tradition; truth or privilege, which? 
(verses 32-40). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

That sin enslaves is a truth level to all human experience. 
The most obvious instance is that of the drink habit. 
Neither argument nor illustration is needed to convince us 
that drink enslaves its victims. But the men to whom 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 195 

Christ was talking in our lesson for to-day were not drink- 
ing men. They lived lives of the extremest puritanic strict- 
ness. Moreover, they were religionists whose whole lives 
were absorbed in religious observances. And not only so, 
their religion was not heathenism, but a religion revealed 
by the true God, and every form of it was observed by them 
with scrupulous exactness. They had the profoundest rev- 
erence for the name of God, and were assiduous in attend- 
ance on synagogue and temple. Why should Jesus tell 
such men that they were the bond slaves of sin They did 
not steal, nor blaspheme, nor drink. They did not play 
worldly games, nor attend the theatres when in Rome. 

Their sins were bigotry, self-righteousness and unbelief. 
And to those sins they were in a slavery so absolute that 
they did not even know it. Nay, they were most self-right- 
eous and self-complacent at those very points. There is no 
heart so hard as the heart of a religious formalist. No 
other sort of man is so hopelessly cruel, so relentlessly un- 
forgiving. No other man is so merciless toward the weak 
and erring. The two offences of Jesus which condemned 
Him in the estimation of these good people were His con- 
stant violation of their conventional ideas of strict Sabbath 
observance, and His close touch upon the lives of ''sinners." 

They were bound hand and foot in mere traditionalism 
and formalism ; and, with a real zeal of God, they hounded 
Jesus to the cross. The lesson is that the slavery of sin is 
not confined to the outbreaking and openly shameful sins ; 
that spiritual deadness and the monstrous sin of self-right- 
eousness also enslave. 

That is one-half of the heart of this lesson. The other 
half is that whether the bondage be that of drink or of 
Pharisaic correctness, the one delivering power is the truth. 
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 



196 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

free." And all real knowledge of the truth begins with 
knowing Him who is the Truth. Truth is not an imper- 
sonal ethic, primarily. Truth, primarily, is just Jesus 
Christ; the ethic is incidental. Then, in a secondary but 
equally important sense, the whole body of revelation which 
gathers about and interprets Christ and His work is "the 
Truth." 

Have we wondered sometimes at the tremendous em- 
phasis which Scripture puts upon the divine sacredness of 
that body of revelation? Has it seemed to us harsh when 
Paul solemnly denounces the anathema of God on the 
preacher of "any other gospel than that which you have 
received"? Does it seem unduly harsh when a Spirit filled 
apostle delivered to Satan that he might learn not to blas- 
pheme one worse error was the seemingly venial one of 
maintaining that the resurrection had passed already? (i 
Tim. i:2o; 2 Tim. ii: 17-18). It was because the only 
means which can avail for the saving and disenthrallment of 
men is the Truth. 

The incarnate Truth, Christ, saves the slaves of sin by 
His power, from the bondage of sin, as He saves them from 
the guilt of sin by His blood ; and the revealed Truth saves 
men from mental and spiritual bondage by the new light 
which it brings. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 197 

HEALING OF THE MAN BORN BLIND. 

(John ix: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

(i) The natural condition of all men (verse i). 

(2) The right and the wrong explanation (verses 4-6). 

(3) The Light giving light (verses 5-7). 

(4) A faithful witness (verses 8-11). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

This lesson presents our Lord in perhaps the greatest of 
His characters, that of the light of the world. To all out- 
ward seeming nothing could have been more audacious. 
What the unbelieving world saw as it looked upon Jesus 
was a young Jewish artisan, from a remote and ill-reputed 
village of Galilee. He spoke of the world, but He had 
never travelled. Not once had He been beyond the con- 
fines of the little land given to His ancestor, Abraham. The 
civilizations of Greece and Rome were known to Him only 
by rumor. The great literatures of the world and its science 
and art were unknown to Him. He had neither wealth nor 
great position. His followers were a few ignorant fisher- 
men, tax gatherers and converted harlots. He had not 
written a book, and He was about to go out of life as an 
executed criminal. All this was what the world saw, and 
all that it saw. 

Nineteen hundred years have passed since Jesus an- 
nounced Himself as the Light of the World. What does 
that world see now ? It sees the absolute verification of that 
claim. Wherever Jesus is known there is light; and the 
measure of the light in any part of the world to-day is the 
precise measure of the degree in which Jesus is known. 



198 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

To any civilized man life is intolerable just where Jesus 
is not known. He has proved Himself to be not only the 
sole spiritual light which this world has, or has ever had, 
but He is the light of intellect and of the affectional life as 
well. Everywhere the ethic of Jesus has formed the human 
conscience. Millions are living in conscious violation of 
that ethic, but they are all living with a bad conscience be- 
cause of it. The intellectual light which Jesus has shed 
abroad in the world has been awfully perverted, and for 
this the Gentile nations will be called to an awful account 
when He comes back again, but the light came from Him. 

He has given the only light on the mysteries of life and 
of death which has been found adequate. He has inter- 
preted both life and death. Life here is immensely im- 
portant because it is the vestibule to the life beyond ; and 
death is a conquered enemy, who can at the worst but open 
the gates of glory to a passing saint. He has given light on 
the philosophy of life, on the true life-method. Life is to be 
invested, not hoarded, and the investment is to be made 
in other lives, not in stocks and bonds. Religion is not say- 
ing prayers, but visiting the fatherless and widows in their 
affliction, and keeping himself unspotted from the world. 
When ecclesiasticism, and creed and custom, and form give 
place to conversion, the unity of the Spirit, and the invested 
life, there will come such a revival as this world never saw. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 199 

THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 

(John x: 7-18.) 
I. The Analysis. 

(i) The Shepherd as the door of the sheep, verses 7-9. 

(2) The Life-giver, verse 10. 

(3) The Good Shepherd and the hireHng, verses 11-14. 

(4) The Good Shepherd and the Father, verses 15-18. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The shepherd office of our Lord is differentiated in three 
ways : He is called the "good," the "great," and the "chief" 
Shepherd. As the good Shepherd he gives his life for the 
sheep. As the great Shepherd he comes again from the 
dead to care for the sheep. As the chief Shepherd he is 
coming again to gather the sheep into the eternal pas- 
tures (John X : 1 1 ; Heb. xiii : 20 ; i Peter v : 4 ; John xiv : 
1-4; I Thess. iv: 15-18). In the present lesson we have 
before us the first of these shepherd characters. He does 
not here speak either of raising from the dead to care for 
the sheep, nor of coming again to gather the sheep. 

As the good Shepherd he is, first, the door of the sheep. 
Four things are true of those who enter in by the door 
of Christ Jesus, (i) Salvation. "He shall be saved." The 
sheepfold of the good Shepherd is a place of perfect secu- 
rity. The Shepherd becomes responsible for the safety of 
every sheep who simply "enters in" (John x:28). (2) 
"He . . . shall go in." This speaks of communion, the 
privilege of access in prayer and fellowship. 

It is of the greatest importance to our peace to get this set- 
tled once for all, that our right of access to the Father does 
not depend on our sanctification, but only on our justifica- 



200 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

tion. We "enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by 
that new and living way which he hath consecrated for us 
through the vail" (Heb. x: 19-20). We are made nigh by 
the blood (Eph. ii: 13), not by goodness. (3) "And out," 
that is for testimony and service. The second and third 
blessings of those who enter by the door Christ Jesus are 
closely related; for, if we "go out" more than we "go in," 
our testimony will be feeble and formal. And (4) "He 
. . . shall find pasture." The door is a door of abund- 
ance, not of want. They who begin by entering in, and go 
on in communion and service, will assuredly eat of the fat 
of the land, of the very finest of the wheat. 

Then, the second characteristic of the good Shepherd 
is that he "gives his life for the sheep." The contrast sug- 
gested here is with the law. Under law the sheep must die 
for the shepherd (Gen. iv:4; Exodus xxix: 15-16; Levit. 
V : 5-6). Under grace the Shepherd dies for the sheep (John 
i:29). 

The third characteristic of the good Shepherd is that he 
knows his sheep, and his sheep know him. "He calleth his 
own sheep by name." One of the sweet discoveries of the 
heavenly fold will be the new names that our Shepherd 
has given each of us as we entered by the door into the 
sheepfold (Rev. ii: 17). Som.e of the early saints seem to 
have been given their new name at once. "Thou art Simon, 
thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a 
rock." Afterward the Shepherd called him "Petros," call- 
ing himself at the same time "this Petra." Petra means 
a rock ; Petros, a piece of a rock, a little stone. It was an 
affectionate play upon the two names, and how tender and 
intimate it all is ! 

Probably the word tenderness most fully expresses the 
varied nature of the shepherd offices of our Lord. There 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 201 

is nothing in all the Bible that more speaks to our hearts 
than the Twenty-third Psalm, or this Tenth of John. But 
we must remember that the tenderness of Jesus Christ is 
never sentimental. It is always the tenderness of perfect 
strength, and perfect righteousness. The Shepherd has a 
rod as well as a staff. 

A story is told of one who talked with a shepherd in the 
higher Alps. While talking the shepherd gathered a hand- 
ful of the best grass and went to a low shelter near by. 
"I have a sheep there with a broken leg," he said. "How 
did that happen?" queried the traveller. "It did not hap- 
pen," answered the shepherd; "I broke it intentionally. 
That sheep was headstrong, and unruly. It did not love 
me, and was always leading the other sheep astray. Now it 
knows its dependence on me, and loves to eat from my hand. 
When it is well again it will keep nearer to me than any of 
the sheep." 

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 

(John xi: 32-45.) 

I. The Analysis. 

(i) The meeting of Jesus with Martha, verses 20-27. 

(2) The meeting of Jesus and Mary, verses 28-34. 

(3) The resurrection of Lazarus, verses 35-45. 

(4) The blessed result, verse 45. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The deeper meanings of this lesson are indicated by our 
Lord himself. 

First. "To the intent ye may believe" (verse 15). The 
miracle of Lazarus' resurrection, then, was, first of all 



202 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

a testimony to believers to his own. A testimony intended 
to produce faith, not in the doctrine of a resurrection "at 
the last day" ; that, in common with all spiritual Jews, they 
already believed. With Job they believed that, *'After I 
shall awake, though this body be destroyed, yet out of my 
flesh shall I see God" (Job xix:25). Martha expressed 
that common faith when she said, *'I know that he shall 
rise again at the last day." It was the old promise to Dan- 
iel, '*Thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the 
days." 

But the addition to the faith of his disciples which the 
resurrection of Lazarus was to effect was faith in Jesus 
as having in himself resurrection power. Martha, indeed, 
went beyond mere belief in a resurrection : "I know that 
even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give 
it thee." She believed in a resurrection, and in Christ as 
an Intercessor of such prevalency that through his prayers 
God would even raise the dead. But Jesus is, himself, the 
resurrection. The ancient Syrian church called him "the 
Vivifier" ; the ancient Abyssinian church, "the Resurrec- 
tioner." 

The resurrection of Lazarus, then, is not only a new 
demonstration of the Deity of Christ, but also the presenta- 
tion of Christ to our faith in a new character, "the resur- 
rection and the life." Obviously, since death is the result 
of sin (Rom. v: 12), a perfect Redeemer must be able to 
annul death. 

Second. "That the Son of God might be glorified there- 
by" (verse 4). This is not something different from the 
first meaning, but the same meaning applied to Christ in- 
stead of to the faith of the disciples. For Christ is glorified 
when something of his divinity is revealed. On the mount 
of transfiguration, for example, he "appeared in glory" — 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 203 

that is, His essential Deity shone forth through the veil of 
flesh which usually hid it. In the first miracle at Cana he 
"manifested forth His glory" in the act of creative power — 
a power belonging to Deity alone. So here again the resur- 
rection of Lazarus was a work of divine power, and so a 
manifestation of His glory. 

Then, third, the resurrection of Lazarus was to the end 
that the bystanders (not his disciples) might believe (verse 
42). And this actually occurred, as we learn from verse 
45 : "Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and 
had seen the things which he did, believed on him." 

If, now, we sum up the matter, we shall find the heart 
of the lesson in the disclosure which it makes of the divine 
motive in miracle. Every miracle, especially the perpetual 
miracle of the new birth, which is life to a dead soul, as the 
resurrection of Lazarus was life to a dead body, is for the 
strengthening of our faith in him as the Lord of life ; not 
in a general sense, but in a particular sense as the one who 
is able to give the new life to the one whom we love, and 
for whom we pray ; is a showing forth of his divine glory, 
and a testimony upon which faith in those who see the great 
work may rest. 

For, after all, there is no more convincing testimony to 
the divine power of Christ than that of a life redeemed to 
purity, piety and usefulness. "Beholding the man that was 
healed standing with them, they could say nothing against 
it" (Acts iv: 14). 



204 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

THE SUPPER AT BETHANY. 

(John xii: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

(i) The Supper, verses 1-2. 

(2) The act of Mary, verses 3-4. 

(3) The insincere objection, verses 5-6. 

(4) Jesus' vindication of Mary, verses 7-8. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The central figure in this scene is, incontestably, Mary of 
Bethany. Our Lord himself makes her so. To her He gives 
the highest praise ever bestowed by God on a mere human 
being, "She hath done what she could." Mary of Bethany 
is the highest type of discipleship in the New Testament, 
and in this lesson she is seen at her highest reach, so that 
the character of this simple village girl becomes the heart of 
the lesson. 

She comes into the narratives of the earth life of Christ 
three times, and these have a sequence which must be fol- 
lowed if we are to understand, not Mary alone, but the 
conditions of the highest discipleship. In the first two 
scenes she is brought into contrast with her sister Martha; 
in the last her spiritual intelligence and her utter devoted- 
ness appear against the foil of the stupidity of all the other 
disciples, and especially of the traitor, Judas. 

We meet Mary first sitting at Jesus' feet and hearing His 
word. It was the place of a learner, of one who would, 
first of all comprehend her Master. Martha, on the other 
hand, begins, not by knowing Him, but by a noisy burdened 
service for Him. She has had her followers in every age. 
Every church knows them: the bustling, fussy, troubled 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 205 

getters up of fairs, and suppers for the indirect raising of 
the money which the Bible tells us to quietly give. She, 
like her modern sisters, has little patience with them who 
quietly sit at Jesus' feet and she must meet her Lord's 
gentle rebuke, his vindication of Mary: "She hath chosen 
that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." 

We next meet Mary on the occasion of the resurrection 
of Lazarus. Again she is in contrast with Martha. Mary 
abides quietly in the house till the Master calls for her; 
Martha meets and rebukes him, even while confessing a 
faith shortly to contradict itself at the grave-side. It is 
easy to repeat a formula, to say, "Yea, Lord," when asked, 
"Believest thou this?" concerning a great truth; quite 
another matter to use that faith in the moment of testing. 
"He hath been dead four days" was the actual measure of 
Martha's faith. In all this scene little is said of Mary till 
we come to that statement which we may so easily pass 
over: "Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and 
had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him." 

Mary's friends, not Martha's were converted. They saw 
something in Mary's bearing under trial which convinced 
them that she had a resource in sorrow all unknown to 
them. Oh, the power of the quiet faith that has ripened 
in meditation at Jesus' feet and in the hearing of his word ! 
In the first scene we might well think of Mary as gentle 
and winsome, but unpractical. Now we see that her Master 
made no mistake when he said, "Mary hath chosen that 
good part." And, in the light of that saying how idle to 
speak of the different temperaments of these two sisters. 
Jesus said the difference was one of choice, not tempera- 
ment. 

And now, in our present lesson, we have Mary in the 
highest privilege of discipleship, "the fellowship of His suf- 



2o6 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ferings." Only Mary, of all His disciples, had really under- 
stood the Master when He said that He must be crucified 
and rise again the third day. They were dismayed by the 
crucifixion, and incredulous of the resurrection. But Mary 
came to anoint his body beforehand tq the burying. Well 
she knew that if she were ever to perform that office of 
love toward her Lord it must be before the burying. She 
of Bethany is not among the women who went, in all ten- 
derness of love, indeed, but ignorantly, to anoint Christ 
who had already risen from the dead. 

And who shall say what solace, what comfort it gave 
His loving heart to perceive that one at least of those for 
whom He was about to die was entering with Him by 
anticipation into Gethsemane and Calvary? 

THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. 

(John xii: 12-26.) 
I. The Analysis. 

(i) The triumphal entry, verses 12-16. 

(2) The confused opinions of the people, verses 17-19. 

(3) The desire of the Greeks, verses 20-22. 

(4) The answer of Christ, verses 23-26. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

There is a beautiful order in the incidents which form 
our lessons, for the present and following weeks, to which 
a brother called the attention of the church many 
years ago. , Beginning with the twelfth chapter, the events 
fall into the order of the tabernacle, or temple service. 
That order, it will be remembered, was, first, the brazen 
altar whereon the burnt oflfering was oflfered; then the 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 207 

la^er of cleansing; then the holy place, the scene of fel- 
lowship and worship ; and, last of all the most holy place, 
into which the high priest entered. 

Following that order we have in the twelfth chapter 
the death of the Lord in three aspects, as the corn of 
wheat, the judgment of the world, and irresistible attrac- 
tion. In the thirteenth chapter, the laver of cleansing; in 
the fourteenth and sixteenth chapters the High Priest and 
his associate priests in the Holy Place, in intimate com- 
munion, and in the seventeenth chapter the High Priest 
passes as it were behind the veil into the Holy of Holies, 
and the listening priests hear his voice in intercession ac- 
cording to Hebrews vii : 25. 

Every Christian, certainly every Sunday school teacher, 
ought to study with care the typology of the Tabernacle. 
It gives the mould, or form, of the divine plan of redemp- 
tion, and in many ways recurs through the whole Scrip- 
ture. 

Turning now to the lesson, we are, I think, to find its 
deeper truth in the answer of Christ to Philip and Andrew 
when certain Greeks wished to see him: "The hour is 
come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die it bringeth 
forth much fruit." 

What did our Lord mean? How do his words consti- 
tute a reason for not seeing the Greeks? These Greeks 
were Gentile proselytes to Judaism. Why should he not see 
them? 

Briefly, because a King offering himself to his own 
proper subjects, the Jews, was no object of faith to a Gen- 
tile. Rejected by Israel, He was about to be crucified for 
the sins of the world, Jew and Gentile, and then, as the 



2o8 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Crucified, He would become the right Object of faith to 
both Jew and Gentile. An uncrucified Messiah could save 
no Gentile, no Jew. This is His own word: "Except a 
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." 

And this word of Christ's is the sufficient answer to all 
the theories of the atonement which ignore the liberation 
of the life of Christ that it might be imparted to all who 
believe. *'In Him was life," and on the cross that life was 
set free to enter those who, through faith in Him are born 
again, just as a corn of wheat, planted, dies into countless 
corns of wheat. Only through death could Christ become 
the life-giver. 

We have not before us in John xii the sin-offering aspect 
of our Lord's death, but rather the whole burnt offering 
aspect, that sense in which His death was all for the Father. 

The heart of this lesson, then, is that Christ would not 
show himself to the Greeks because salvation is not by the 
influence of His spotless life, as some say, but by faith 
in Him as crucified for us that we might not perish, but 
have eternal life. He had offered himself as a king to 
Israel, but during the time of his earth-ministry His dis- 
ciples were carefully instructed not to go in any way of the 
Gentiles, but only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 
After the crucifixion, however, the word was to go to the 
uttermost parts of the earth, but the message was no longer 
to be, ''The kingdom of heaven is at hand," but ^'Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." 

An uncrucified Christ was not, could not be, an object of 
faith to the Gentiles. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 209 

WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET. 

(John xiii: 1-14.) 
I. The Analysis. 

(i) The unfaiHng love of Jesus, verse I. 

(2) The symbolical service of Jesus, verses 2-5. 

(3) The objection of Simon, verse 6. 

(4) The explanation of the feet-washing, verses 7-14. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Cleansing, in order to service and communion, is evi- 
dently the central truth of this lesson. Our Lord makes 
this clear in his answer to Peter's protestation, "Thou shalt 
never wash my feet." Our Lord answered him, "If I wash 
thee not, thou hast no part with me/' The reference is 
not to salvation, as the Lord makes clear in verse 10; "He 
that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet." 

As this distinction is a vital one, we linger a moment 
upon it. It is in a word, the distinction between justifica- 
tion and sanctification. Justification is cleansing from the 
guilt of sin; sanctification is a progressive cleansing from 
the habit of sin. Both these aspects meet in such passages 
as Psa. li : 7, and Eph. v : 25-27. David says : "Purge me 
with hyssop, and I shall be clean : wash me, and I shall 
be whiter than snow." Hyssop was the little shrub with 
which sacrificial blood was applied, and speaks, therefore, 
of the guilt of sin. Purged with blood David was "clean" 
before God ; but, as with us after conversion, he discovered 
sins of habit from which he needed to be "washed" if he 
were to be indeed "whiter than snow." So, in the Ephe- 
sian passage, Christ "loved the church, and gave Himself 
for itj'l which was redemption by blood, justification; "that 
14 



210 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water 
by the word," which is progressive sanctification, and an- 
swers to the feet washing of John xiii. 

The thought is of the "walk" of the believer, not of the 
salvation of a sinner; and the imagery is drawn, not only 
from the place of the laver in the temple order, which was 
between the place of sacrifice and the place of worship, 
service and communion, but also from the daily life of the 
Orient. In the public bath the body is washed clean, but 
the feet, in passing from the bath to the home, contract de- 
filement by the way. This must be removed as a prelude to 
the happy fellowship of the home. 

Christ, who was about to bring the disciples into the in- 
timacy of the first Lord's supper, must have them clean first. 

The lessons are obvious. As the priest could not pass 
from the altar on which offerings were burnt to the holy 
place where he offered incense, type of prayer and worship, 
without stopping at the laver for cleansing, so Christ would 
teach us that, saved though we surely are if we have believed 
on Him crucified, yet we cannot have His intimacy, cannot 
serve Him, cannot acceptably pray to Him, or worship the 
Father unless we, too, have been to the laver. 

In I John 1 : 9 we find the New Testament laver : "If we 
confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 

Note the words "faithful and just." Why not kind and 
merciful? Because the forgiveness of the daily sins of the 
believer does not proceed from the general benevolence of 
God, but from His recognition of the work of Christ on the 
cross. He is just to the cross of Christ, and faithful to His 
covenant. 

But let us not leave this all important subject without 
noticing our Lord's words, "Except / wash thee, thou hast 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 211 

no part with Me." Confession does not cleanse us from the 
defilements of our walk. The great passage only says that 
if we confess He is faithful and just to forgive and to 
cleanse. Let us not be proud of our confessions of sin, for 
confession is, after all, but putting the defiled feet into the 
pierced hands of Jesus for cleansing. 

THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES. 

(John XV : 1-12.) 

I. The Analysis. 

1. Christ the "true" Vine. The word "true," in John's 
writings, means "real." The contrast is not between truth 
and falsehood, but between type and fulfilment. Israel was 
a vine (Isa. v) but a wild-grape vine. Christ is the real 
vine. Verse i. 

2. The fruitless branch. Verse 2. This is a believer, a 
true branch in the Vine, but one which in the soil of earth, 
does not bear fruit; so the Husbandman transplants it. 
"Taketh away" is, literally, "taketh up out of." 

3. The cleansing Word. Verse 3. The application of 
the Word, by the Spirit, to the believer's ways. Eph. v : 26. 

4. The condition of f ruitfulness. Verses 4, 5, 7. "Abide." 
The sphere of the believer's life is, "in the heavenly, in 
Christ." Eph. i : 3 ; ii : 6. To abide is just to live. "The 
heavenly" is not a place — the word should be stricken out of 
Ephesians : it is a state of being. Heaven, on the contrary, 
is a place. We are in the heavenly now ; we shall presently 
be taken to heaven, and then we shall still be in the heavenly. 
So long as we are living a heavenly life down here we are 
"abiding" in Christ. 

5. The mere professor. Verse 6. Here our Lord does 



212 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

not say : "Every branch in me" ; but, "If a man abide not." 
Even "men" despise a fruitless, non-abiding professor. 

6. The three degrees of fruit-bearing. Verses JX 5, 8. 
"Fruit," "more fruit," "much fruit." Not until much fruit 
is reached do we glorify God. 

7. The "Father's commandments" and the Son's "com- 
mandment." Verses 9-12. This is a distinction of vital im- 
portance. Christ came to fulfil the law, and kept His 
Father's commandments. To us He gives the new com- 
mandment of love, and He writes that on our hearts. Heb. 
viii : 10. We do love one another. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The emphatic word in this lesson is "fruit," and the lesson 
itself is an unfolding of the conditions which must exist if 
fruit is to be borne. A preliminary word as to the meaning 
of the word. In Galatians (v: 22, 23) fruit is defined to be 
"love, joy, peace, longsufifering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
meekness, temperance" ; in other places fruit is good works ; 
in still others, converts. I think the word in our lesson is 
generic, and includes the graces which make the Christian 
character, good works, and the winning of souls. In other 
words, our Lord here lays down the conditions which result 
in fruitful Christian lives. It is well to note, before leaving 
the word, that three degrees of fruit-bearing are mentioned; 
"fruit," "more fruit," "much fruit," and not until we bear 
much fruit is our Father glorified. The reason is that up to 
a certain point the graces of the Christian character may be, 
and are, imitated by persons who are naturally gentle and 
amiable, kindly and cultured. The ideals of Christ are 
universally known and approved, and, in so-called Christian 
lands, the behavior of respectable people is based upon them. 
But the winsomeness of the gentle and amiable worldling 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 213 

never goes so far as the winning of souls, and the Christian's 
"love, joy, and peace" cannot be counterfeited. 

What, then, are the conditions of fruit-bearing? They are 
two, and two only. That is part of "the simplicity which is 
in Christ." 

And first, there must be such a vital union to Christ as is 
implied in the figure chosen by Him to express that union — 
a vine and its branches. I have called it a "vital," that is 
living union. Let us try really to grasp that fact — the fact 
that the believer is as really a part of Christ as the branch 
of a vine is a part of the vine. Do not think of our Lord's 
words as a mere figure of speech. He uses, indeed, a figure 
drawn from nature, but He uses it because it exactly ex- 
presses His meaning ; the believer is an actual part of Christ. 

This is the truth taught even more vitally in the revelation 
concerning the Body of Christ. "For, by one Spirit have we 
all been baptised into one body, and have all been made to 
drink into one Spirit" (i Cor. xii: 12). "He that is joined 
to the Lord is one spirit." "I am crucified with Christ, 
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 

For every believer, then, the primary condition exists. 
We are the branches of Him who is the Vine. We have 
not to make it so ; it is so. 

The second condition, therefore, is the one upon which 
our Lord puts the emphasis. He does not say: Become 
members of my body — branches in me — but, "I am the vine, 
ye are the branches." It is upon the maintaining by us of a 
continuous experience according to that fact that Christ 
insists. That is the force of the word abide. To "Abide" 
means to live. The fruit -bearing branch; the branch that 
does not bear fruit, and the "man" who takes the place by 
profession of a branch, but who not abiding proves that he 
is not a branch, must be discriminated. The first is "purged" 



214 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

(cleansed, pruned) that he may bear more fruit; the second, 
a true branch but fruitless is taken away." The Greek here 
is very sweet. It is, literally, "taken up out of"; and is the 
Husbandman's gentle way with a true vine so circumstanced 
as not to bear fruit. The third is, "Cast out as a branch"; 
disowned. 

What is it, then, to abide in Christ? It is best expressed 
in Paul's great testimony already quoted : "I am crucified 
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth 
in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the 
faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for 
me." 

Practically, it is the continual attitude in all the scenes 
and experiences of life of, "yet not I, but Christ." It is to 
oppose to every temptation, "not I but Christ" ; to summon 
to every opportunity "not I but Christ" ; to win men by the 
manifestation of "not I but Christ"; to depend in every 
emergency on "not I but Christ." 

HIS PRAYER. 

(John xvii: 15-26.) 
I. The Analysis. 

See Our Hope: for May, 1904, page 654, where the Edi- 
tor has given a most spiritual analysis of the great inter- 
cessory prayer of Christ. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

There is a close moral connection between this lesson and 
the parable of the vine and the branches. In both the 
underlying truth is the oneness of the believer and Christ. 
In that parable the truth of the oneness was considered 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES ^15 

in its relation to the believer's f ruitf ulness ; in this lesson 
the emphasis is more on his perfect security, and his joy. 
It is important, therefore, that we see how the unity of 
Christ and the believer is the very groundwork of all that 
He asks in our behalf in this great prayer. "Thine they 
were, and thou gavest them me." Because of that He has 
given them everything He has, and asks for them every- 
thing God has. The Father gave Him to have life in him- 
self and to give away, so He gave life to the disciples. God 
was His Father, so He made the disciples children, too. 
The Father gave Him certain words, so He gave those 
words to the disciples. Now He asks that the disciples may 
be with Him where He is, and that they may share all there 
is in heaven for Him. And all this based on the great fact 
of identity. "All mine are thine, and thine are mine." "I 
in them, and thou in me." 

This is the immense truth which marks off the saved of 
this dispensation from the saved of past ages, and of the 
ages to come. The Old Testament saint was a "friend of 
God," like Abraham, or a "friend of the Bridegroom," like 
John the Baptist. The Tribulation saints will be "before 
the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His tem- 
ple." The millennial saints will be subjects of the King. 
But the Christian is, by the new birth, identified with the 
Father by nature (2 Peter 1:4); with the Son by oneness 
of life (i John v: 12; Col. iii: 4; John xiv: 19) ; and with 
the Holy Spirit by His indwelling ( i Cor. vi : 19 ; i Cor. 
vi : 17). It is the truth which the Reformation did not dis- 
cern, and to a consciousness of which the church is coming 
but slowly. 

But, after all, important as it is, and central as it is to the 
possibility of such a prayer, the identity is not the heart of 
this lesson. 



2i6 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

What that heart is our Lord makes clear: "And these 
things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy 
fulfilled in themselves." Or, as Weymouth renders : "that 
they may have my gladness within them, filling their hearts." 
That is, the things which the Lord was saying were the 
things which filled Him with gladness ; and He spoke them 
in our hearing that we, knowing them, might be filled with 
the same gladness. 

Those "things" are, (i) an accomplished redemption. "I 
have finished the work thou gavest me to do." Our Lord 
in this prayer puts Himself this side the cross. All that was 
necessary for our perfect salvation He accomplished on 
Calvary. (2) A perfect manifestation. He not only re- 
vealed the Fatherhood of God as the true relation in which 
God stands toward every believer in Christ crucified, but 
He perfectly revealed the Father. "He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father." (3) He rejoiced in being the repre- 
sentative of the believer with God. The seventeenth of John 
is but an example of the ceaseless intercessory work of 
Christ in the believer's behalf. He had represented the 
Father in heaven to the sons on earth, now He was rep- 
resenting the sons on earth before the Father in heaven. (4) 
He rejoiced in the way He was providing for the perfect 
security of the believer amid all the trials and temptations 
of life. He was depositing them for safe-keeping with the 
Father. Our security rests on the Father's fidelity to a trust 
reposed in Him by His Son. (5) He rejoiced in the sure 
sanctification of the believers. The word here means a 
gradual separation from all that is not of God — a setting 
apart. He so set Himself apart, that we might also, through 
the truth be set apart. (6) He rejoiced in that all believers 
were to be glorified. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 217 

BEFORE PILATE. 

(John xviii : 28-40.) 
I. The Analysis. 

The present lesson does not fall into analytical form. The 
teaching points are to be drawn from the mutual questions 
and answers of Christ and of Pilate. The great lessons 
are: (i) the nature of Chrisfs kingdom in this world, 
but not of it; (2) the true royalty identification with the 
truth; (3) a lesson on substitution, Christ and Barabbas. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The full significance of the lesson topic is only to be 
comprehended by one who studies the parallel accounts of 
the appearances of Christ before the Roman governor. 
With the whole scene and all the events thus before us we 
may ask what is the deepest heart of it all. 

Why was a man with all the power of Rome back of him, 
a man who had not hesitated to send soldiers into the very 
temple to mingle the blood of the worshippers with their 
sacrifices, of a sudden grown afraid of the sanhedrin? Why 
should a man with absolute power, as he himself boasted, 
over life and death, send a man whom he confessed to be 
innocent to a cruel death? 

Our interest in a right answer to these questions is not a 
mere historical interest. Pilate was a typical man. As he 
reasoned so men, consciously or unconsciously, reason to- 
day. The underlying motives which perverted his actions 
pervert the actions of man now. Jesus Christ is always on 
trial. Physical death, indeed. He suffered but once; but 
millions are every day crucifying the Son of God afresh 
and putting Him to an open shame. 



2i8 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Some one has said that in the deep inner sense it was 
Pilate who was |on trial that fateful day. In truth both 
Pilate and Jesus Christ were on trial ; Jesus for the moment ; 
Pilate for all time and all eternity. The Roman governor 
had his assize that day. The future judgment will be but 
declarative of the issues determined when he rejected Jesus, 
and released Barabbas. Of whom, then, is Pilate a type ? 

First of all of the man who has either sadly or cynically 
given up the search for truth. 

When Jesus said : "For this cause came I into the world, 
that I should bear witness unto the truth"; Pilate's con- 
temptuous rejoinder was, 'What is truth?" 

The heathen weariness was upon him. Pagan learning 
and philosophy were both bankrupt. Practical men, men 
of affairs, had ceased to concern themselves with the barren 
controversies of Stoic and Epicurean. Nothing came of it. 
Millions of modern men, more or less articulately, stand 
just there now in respect of religious truth — nay, in respect 
of the insistent personal claims of Christ. *We do not 
know," they say. "Some of you who profess His name say 
that He is but the best of men others of you do not say 
that quite so bluntly, but you reduce Him with your kenotic 
theories, and what not, within limits which after all are 
practically those of mere humanity. Our mothers wor- 
shipped Him — they were good and happy — we are neither 
good nor happy." 

And, next, Pilate stands for the man of expediency. 
"What is popular?" not "What is right; what is true?" 

The most contemptible possible attitude of the human 
soul is the attitude of the opportunist. Day by day the man 
who allows in himself that posture of his inner man is con- 
tracting the mean deformity of soul-stoop. The Duchess 
in the play, seeing her husband fawning upon the Borgia, 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 219 

asks, "And did I indeed marry a man with so pliant a back ?" 
Doubtless there is a sense of what is prudent which is not 
ignoble. There is a noble fear — the fear of the Lord. It is 
one of the Gospel motives. But that other thing ; that mean 
and politic attitude which considers the interest of the mo- 
ment — that man must not think to obtain anything from the 
Lord. But the Lord demands all, and unquestioningly. 

And, again, Pilate stands for the man in whom the spirit- 
ual faculty is all but extinguished by the habit of unbelief. 

Before him stood the Truth, and he had Hed to his soul so 
long that he could not discern Him. Two things quench 
the flame of the spirit of man, that sense of the divine 
which makes the Psalmist call the human spirit, "The candle 
of the Lord"; the giving over of all the powers to the 
things of the world and the habit of skepticism. "Art thou 
a king?" said Pilate. "Thou sayest"; which is idiomatic 
for an affirmation with a reserve. "I am a king; but not in 
your crass sense. You think of a kingdom of force; my 
kingdom is the reign of faith and love. But the very sug- 
gestion that there could be some nobler, sweeter kingdom 
than that resting upon blood and oppression, did not even 
stir a question in Pilate's dead soul. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

(John xix: 17-30.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The crucifixion. Verse 18. Simply does the pen of 
inspiration record the most stupendous event in all history, 
whether of heaven or of earth. Truly this is not the manner 
of man. An uninspired pen writing of the crucifixion would 
have added a multitude of details. 



220 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

2. The title written by Pilate. Verses 19-22. Pilate little 
thought of the deeper meaning of his words in verse 22. 
He had written an awful record against himself that day. 

3. The fulfilled prophecy. Verses 23, 24. This was the 
day of the fulfilment of the 22d Psalm. The student should 
read that Psalm very carefully. 

4. The order now should follow the cries from the cross. 
The first three were uttered in the light, before the darkness 
and the forsaking ; the last four, out of the darkness. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

How shall any mortal say what is central here? Some- 
times I think we shall be more ashamed in the glory of our 
theories of the atonement than of our sins. Perhaps the 
highest reach of impertinence, the final touch of insolence, 
will be found in our poor efforts to compress within a 
definition the meaning of the death of Christ. Let us, at 
any rate, stand unshod before the cross. If Moses were com- 
manded to take the shoes from off his feet before the bush 
that burned with fire, and yet was not consumed, surely we, 
before the dying agonies of the Son of God, should have 
bowed hearts. 

Much of the discussion of the meaning of the cross seems 
little separated from a mere psychological interest — a cold, 
scientific analysis of the mind of Christ in His sufferings. 
How could the Holy Spirit interpret aright those holy mys- 
teries to a callous curiosity? 

I have long believed that the Scriptures are absolutely 
self-interpreting, and, in particular, that the deeper mys- 
teries of the person, teachings and work of Christ are 
accompanied by words which yield, to reverent minds, a 
clue to their right interpretation. I do not mean that such 
interpretative words are the exclusive explanations, for I 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 221 

look upon the Apostolic writings as inspired commentaries 
on the Gospels, but only that Christ Himself gives the au- 
thoritative first clue. 

If this be true, we are to find the deepest meaning of the 
crucifixion in His desolate cry: *'My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ?" The other six utterances from the 
cross present no difficulty. Partly Godward, partly man- 
ward, they are simple. But what shall we say of this? 

We must say, first of all, that the forsaking was real. The 
notion that Christ so identified Himself with the woe and 
sorrow of humanity that He spoke as it were representa- 
tively: "Why hast thou forsaken usf' is inadequate 
because Christ knew that so far from having forsaken hu- 
manity in its dire need, God had "so loved the world as to 
give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." The words 
in the 22d Psalm which immediately follow those quoted 
by our Lord make that clear. "Our fathers trusted in thee : 
they trusted and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto 
thee and were delivered; they trusted in thee, and were not 
confounded." Then follows that which also was in our 
Lord's mind: "But I am a worm, and no man." No, we 
are face to face with the fact that a holy God forsook, in the 
hour of His dire extremity, the only sinless man who ever 
lived. 

And our reverence for that infinite Love whom we call 
God, and adore and love, requires us to say in the second 
place, that there must have been an absolute necessity for 
that forsaking. Thrice the Father had spoken from heaven 
concerning that holy forsaken One: "This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased." Was He doing some- 
thing now with which the Father was displeased? Impos- 
sible ! 



222 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

And the Scriptures require us to say, in the third place, 
that the holy sinless one was there on the cross, identifying 
himself in some sense so infinite that we cannot wholly 
understand it, with the sin of man. "He bore our sins in 
his own body on the tree." Christ also hath once suffered 
for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to 
God. '*A11 we like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned 
every one to his own way and Jehovah hath caused the 
iniquities of us all to meet on him." Even deeper in its 
awful tragic mystery of meaning is that word: *'He hath 
made him to be sin for us — who knew no sin." 

And now we understand a little why the sinless One was 
forsaken. He was sufferng in our stead. The penalty of 
sin — separation from God, was being borne by Him that it 
might not be borne by us. He was vindicating that primal 
law of the moral universe which, as even Plato discovered, 
"rivets together" sin and suffering. 

THE RESURRECTION. 

(John XX : 11-23.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The weeping woman. Peter and the others could be 
satisfied to know the truth ; Mary must go on to find Him. 
The same contrast is often seen to this day. Some believers 
live on doctrines ; others, knowing the doctrines too, cannot 
be satisfied without Himself. 

2. The unrecognized Christ. Mary "supposed" Him to 
be the gardener. Supposings are poor things. Christ's own 
mother went a day's journey "supposing Him to be in the 
company," only to find at night that she had gone a whole 
day without Him. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 223 

3. He calleth His own sheep by name, "Mary." 

4. Peace through the shed blood, and the Spirit out- 
breathed and inbreathed. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The doctrinal heart of this lesson is, of course, the fact 
of the resurrection, and the scriptural implications which go 
with that fact. Paul makes the verity of the Gospel message 
to depend on the historicity of the resurrection of the body 
of Jesus Christ. **And if Christ be not risen, then is our 
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we 
are found false witnesses of God ; because we have testified 
of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, 
if so be that the dead rise not." The last clause, as we see, 
associating with the resurrection of Christ the future resur- 
rection of the believer. 

There is peculiar need in our day of the reaffirmation of 
this fundamental truth of the Christian faith. Indeed, from 
the earliest times there has been manifested a special enmity 
of Satan toward this particular doctrine. *'How say some 
among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ?" "But 
some man will say, How are the dead raised up ?" 

Hymenseus and Philetus "erred, saying that the resurrec- 
tion had passed already," and so overthrew the faith of 
some. Paul declared that error to be a "gangrene" in the 
Christian faith. 

The early church did not err, but there were erroneous 
teachings on this most vital subject; and it was a sense of 
the need of constant restatement of the basal truths of 
Christianity which led to the establishment of what is called 
the church year. This expedient is open to the grave objec- 
tion that it establishes "times and seasons," and the observ- 
ance of "days," against the spirit of the present dispensation, 



224 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

but some such repeated testimony to the pillar truths is 
necessary. 

But Christ, in His recorded words as given in our lesson 
does not make the fact that He was risen the central thing. 
The emphasis of His words falls rather on the missionary 
impulse. It is not that He did not at once give every proof 
of the fact that he was risen, but that this was to Him self- 
evident, and he sought to turn at once the newly awakened 
hope and courage and zeal of His disciples toward the re- 
gions beyond. 

This may be said to form the practical heart of the resur- 
rection lesson, as the fact forms the doctrinal heart. 

The emphatic word of that resurrection morning is, "Go 
tell." (Matt. xxviii:7, 9, 10, 19; Mark xvi:i5; Luke 
xxiv: 46-49; John XX : 21). The disciples' understandings 
were opened that they might understand the Scriptures, but 
that to the end that "repentance and remission of sins might 
be preached in His name among all nations." The dis- 
ciples were glad when they saw the Lord, but He said : "As 
my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." 

In Matthew's account the missionary impulse comes out 
with special emphasis. "Go quickly and tell . . . and 
as they went to tell . . . Jesus met them . . . then 
said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid : go tell." 

In John's account, which is our especial lesson for to- 
day, the missionary impulse is enforced by that saying of 
our Lord's which has been so perverted by the papacy: 
"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; 
and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." 

On these words, as all know, have been built the tremen- 
dous pretensions of the papacy in respect of sins. This is 
not the place in which to expose those pretensions. Surely, 
the words mean something, and that meaning must be inex- 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 225 

pressibly solemn. Is it not this : that Christ has put into our 
hands, administratively, the only possible means by which 
men may receive the remission of their sins — the Gospel? 
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall 
be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they 
have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of 
whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear without 
a preacher ?" 

No, the responsibility for the remission of sins is not on a 
priestly hierarchy, but on us. 



THE MESSAGE OF THE RISEN CHRIST. 

(Rev. i: 10-20.) 
I. The Analysis. 

1. The command to write. Verses 10, 11. 

2. The Patmos vision. Verses 12-20 (see "Heart"). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The lesson title is inexact. What we have in this lesson 
is not a message of the risen Christ, but a vision of the risen 
Christ himself. The message follows in chapters ii to xxii. 

It is significant that John, the beloved disciple whom we 
count to have been most intimate with Jesus, who reclined on 
His breast at the last supper, who had walked and talked 
with Him, fell at His feet as one dead when he saw the risen 
Christ in His glory. 

It should provoke inquiry. It is not the heart of this les- 
son and so I pass it with some questions for our further 
thought. Is He not the unchanging One, "that same Jesus?" 
Undoubtedly. Why, then, did John w^ho knew Him so well 
find the revelation of His glory so overpowering ? Was it not 
IS 



226 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

because John then for absolutely the first time saw Him as 
He essentially isf In the mount of transfiguration John had 
seen Him in the glory of the millennial kingdom; a glory 
subdued to the capacity of man to behold it; now he saw 
''that same Jesus in the glory which He had with the Father 
before the world was." And, ought we not to pray and 
worship in the full sense of all that has been revealed con- 
cerning our adorable Lord ? 

In the gospels we have His glory veiled in the humanity of 
the Carpenter ; in the Patmos vision we have His glory un- 
veiled, and these two portraits blend, or should blend in our 
thought of Him. Because He is the gentle One of Galilee 
and Judea we will come into His very arms ; but because He 
is the infinite God we will come reverently. There was no 
"dear Jesus" and ''sweet Jesus" that day on Patmos. 

But we are, I think, to find the heart of this lesson in what 
John saw that wonderful Lord's day when he was in the 
Spirit. He saw the risen Christ in the plenitude of divine 
power and glory in the midst of the churches. He wore His 
highpriestly robes, signifying intercession (Heb. vii : 24, 25), 
and a girdle, which always signifies service. Thus clothed 
and girded, He was in the midst of His churches on earth. 
As such, and as there, we are to conceive Him through this 
whole dispensation. 

And He gives these churches on earth a most significant 
name. He calls them "golden candlesticks," or "lamp- 
stands." It is at once a definition and a test. A lampstand 
is something which exists for a purpose — to hold up a light. 
It does not exist for its own sake. Christ is the Light of the 
world, and the business of His lampstands is to hold Him 
up. When the churches become self-conscious, self-centred, 
they are sure to attract attention to themselves, not to the 
Light. 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 227 

Minot's Ledge Light is a wonderful triumph of engineer- 
ing skill, but its business is to hold up Boston Light, and the 
storm-tossed mariner who catches its beckoning gleam 
through the darkness of the tempest and makes the harbor 
which he had despaired of, thinks little of the tower, but 
much of the light. 

When the eloquence of the preacher, or the magnificence 
of the architecture, or the beauty of the stained glass win- 
dows, or the attractiveness of the choir have come to be the 
things for which a church is most remarked, we may be sure 
the Light is lowered, or dimmed, or withdrawn. 

And these candlesticks were of gold, and gold is the sym- 
bol of divine righteousness. The Light of the world is to be 
held aloft in no compromise with the world which is at 
once to enlighten and rebuke. It admits of no use of tainted 
money; no offering of that which is unclean on the altar 
of the Lord. 

But how blessed that the risen Christ is in the midst of the 
candlesticks even though they are very faulty ; even though 
He is immediately to raise many a searching issue with them. 
Ephesus had left first love ; Pergamos had settled down com- 
fortably in the world ; Thyatira was married to the heathen 
Jezebel; Sardis had a name to live and was dead, and 
Laodicea was a disgust to His holy soul, but He is still in the 
midst of the churches. 

In these churches we have a prophetic foreview of the 
seven phases through which the church on earth is to pass ; 
and it is most solemn that in the last or present phase the 
risen Christ is outside the door. With the self-satisfaction 
and self-glorification of Laodicea He has no part. 



228 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

THE HEAVENLY HOME. 

(Rev. xxii: i-ii.) 
I. The Analysis. 

I. The conditions of perfect blessedness, verses 1-5 (see 
"Heart"). 2. The consummation and its effect, verses 6-9. 
The imminency of His coming, verses 10, 11. 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

The twenty-second chapter of the Revelation does not 
give, as the lesson title would indicate, a vision of our heav- 
enly home, but of the glory and blessedness of the millennial 
earth. The river is the river of Ezekiel's vision (Ezekiel 
xlvii), and the conditions of blessing those which shall 
obtain when Messiah's kingdom is set up. 

But heavenly blessedness is not a matter of locality, though 
doubtless heaven is a locality. The conditions of heavenly 
blessing are the same wherever they exist, and the millen- 
nium is but "the days of heaven on earth" (Deut. xi:2i). 
The heart of the lesson, therefore, I judge to lie in those 
conditions as set forth therein. These are seven, two nega- 
tive, five positive. That is, if felicity is to be perfect some 
things must not be, and some things must be. 

The two negative conditions are, "no more curse"; "no 
night." The "curse" of God is His sorrowful assent to hu- 
manity's final choice of the things which carry curses in their 
very nature and being. "As he loved cursing, so let it come 
unto him; as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far 
from him" (Psa. cix: 17). But in the heavenly home no 
one will desire the things which are accursed, but all will 
delight in the will of a God who is perfect love. 

So of "night," or darkness, which is always in Scripture 



NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 229 

associated with evil, and with separation from God and from 
the good. To say, "there shall be no night there," is to say, 
there shall be no evil there. Herbert Spencer has defined 
heaven (in which, by the way, he did not believe) as "A 
perfect being, in a perfect environment." That is what our 
heaven is to be : a perfect environment. No curse, no night. 

Then, on the positive side, which is the great matter, after 
all, five wonderful conditions of blessing are enumerated. 

"The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it." And 
that means the perfect reign of perfect love. Love is the 
only ultimate authority. Of love only could it be said: 
"Love never faileth." Everything else fails. Power has a 
thousand limitations — even almighty power. The almighti- 
ness of God could, indeed crush us into dust, but only the 
almightiness of His love can make us love Him, and, till 
we love Him, and obey because we love, He esteems nothing 
as done. That is the inner reason why we are not under 
the law but under grace. That the throne of God is there 
means, in Paul's great phrase, that "Grace reigns through 
righteousness." But it is the throne of the Lamb, too ; that 
is, the regnancy of redeeming love ; the love that "loved nve, 
and gave himself for me." 

Again, our heavenly home is a sphere of service — the ser- 
vice of love. Perfect blessedness there could not be in 
inactivity. We are to have bodies incorruptible, glorious, 
powerful, and spirits made perfect in immortal vigor ; how 
could perfect felicity for such things be without service in 
that larger sphere of life? 

We are to "see His face." Love cannot be perfectly con- 
tent, still less satisfied, without the presence of the beloved 
one. The face which we shall see is the face that was buf- 
feted for us; the "visage that was more marred than any 



230 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

man." It will express His love for us, and answer the love 
which we bestow through His matchless grace. 

His name will be in our foreheads. That speaks of perfect 
conformity to His likeness. It is the blessing which logically 
follows seeing His face. "We shall be like Him, for we 
shall see Him as He is." To be with Him and to be like 
Him — that alone would seem heaven. 

But we too shall reign. Kings by the new birth, we are 
now keeping the hour of His patience (Rev. iii : lo). Then 
we shall be associated with Him in authority. Doubtless 
in the lesson the sphere of that authority is the millennial 
earth ; but the essential thing in royalty is not the sphere of 
rule, but true kingliness of being, and to that shall we, now 
so easily ruled by self and sin, be at last brought. No man 
is truly a king who must be ruled by external power. 



ABSTINENCE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. 

(i Cor. x: 23-33.) 

I. The Analysis. 

I. The principle of Gospel liberty (verses 23-33). 2. 
The principle of governing life by that which will edify 
(verses 23-33). 3- ^^^ principle of governing life by the 
law of love (verses 23-33). 

II. The Heart of the Lesson. 

Perhaps no part of the Pauline message has been more 
perverted than that to which the question of meats gave 
rise. It cannot be necessary to explain what that question 
was. The Corinthians and other Greco-Roman converts 
from paganism had been in the habit both of feasting in 
the temples on meat which had been exposed before idols, 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 231 

and of purchasing such meat in the markets. In their 
heathen state all this stood connected with the idolatrous 
worship. After conversion the question of continuing to 
eat such meat inevitably arose. Was it not holding on to 
so much of the old false religion? 

Into that question the Holy Spirit by Paul entered boldly. 
The whole answer is found, not in our lesson alone, but in 
the analogous discussion in the eighth chapter. Taking the 
teaching as a whole, the principles laid down are these : 

1. There is a peril of conceit, of arrogance, in judging 
concerning such matters; a danger of assuming to have 
"knowledge" (i Cor. viii: 1-3). 

2. The idol is nothing, and the meat undefiled by being 
exposed before the idol. Here the principle is that a thing 
good in itself is not to be rejected because some people 
make a wrong use of it. In parts of Europe "blessed" 
candles are offered for sale. The apostle would say : "The 
so-called blessing has not injured the candle: it will give 
just as much light as an unblessed candle." 

3. Concerning all such matters no Christian may judge 
his brother, or despise his brother. "Neither if we eat 
are we the better ; neither if we eat not are we the worse." 
(i Cor. viii: 8). "Let not him that eateth despise him 
that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge 
him that eateth : for God hath received him. Who art 
thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own 
master he standeth or falleth" (Rom. xiv:3, 4). "Let no 
man, therefore, judge you (i. e., be your conscience) in 
meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the 
new moon, or of the sabbath" (Col. ii: 16). 

This is the law constantly and shamelessly violated by 
the strict. The Christian who does not play cards, or 



232 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

attend the theater, is bitter, outspoken, and condemnatory 
of the Christian who does. 

4. The law of prudence. This law is for self-enforce- 
ment, in the forum of each Christian's own conscience. It 
is not a law by which Christian may judge Christian, for 
that would be an infraction of the third principle. Paul 
states this law of prudence: **A11 things are lawful unto 
me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful 
for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any" 
(i Cor. vi: 12). 

The law of prudence, then, is self-applied in the personal 
conscience ; it is never for external application. And it 
sets up a two-fold standard : *ls it expedient (profitable) ; 
does it edify (build up) ?" And, "Does it expose me to the 
danger of being brought under bondage to the habit of it ? 

As to the first, the whole man, spirit, soul, body, must 
be taken into account. "Does it enlarge the mental capaci- 
ties? Does it develop along noble lines the emotional and 
volitional part of me? Does it contribute to bodily well- 
being?" If it does not; or if observation and experience 
show that along the line of the proposed indulgence slavery 
to habit may be formed, then the thing is to be summarily 
rejected. 

5. The law of love. And here the Christian comes out 
and looks about him. It is not now solely a question for 
himself — a question to be settled by the fourth principles. 
He now takes account of himself as a member of the body 
of Christ; as his brother's keeper. He does not come out 
to judge his brother, but to judge himself as responsible for 
his brother's edification. 

He will not eat meat in an idol's temple, even though 
he knews the meat to be good and nourishing, and the idol 
but a block of stone, because a weak brother, just escaping 



OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES 233 

from heathenism, having still a conscience hurt by anything 
pertaining to idolatry, might be led back to do what, even 
mistakenly, might give him a bad conscience. 

In other words, to the law of prudence, with its ques- 
tions: "Will it profit mef May it enslave meT The 
Christian adds the law of love with its question: "If I do 
this thing, may I injure my brother?" 

Two cautionary words of vital importance : 

First. — The law of love, like the law of prudence, is for 
my own self-government; it is not a club in the hands of 
a fanatic or a puritan that he may govern me. 

Second. — I am to judge what, in my conduct, would harm 
or help my brother by the Scriptures, and not by human 
standards, which may be strict with the strictness of pharisa- 
ism, and far from the large wholesomeness of Jesus Christ. 

In other words, I may owe a duty of enlightenment and 
of enlargement to my weak brother. Never forget that in 
the performance of that duty Christ broke with the strict( 
religionists of His day, and incurred the reproach of being 
^'gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and 
sinners/^ 



Lectures and Addresses 



THE BOOK OF JOB. 
By C. I. Scofield. 

If we are to do anything with such a book as Job within 
the compass of one hour, it is evident that we must accept 
certain Hmitations. Obviously it will be impossible to make 
a close study of its forty-two chapters of human reasoning 
and divine revelation. Evidently, we are shut up to a pano- 
ramic view of the book. Our study must bear the same rela- 
tion to the book that an artist's sketch does to the finished 
landscape. But even a sketch may be accurate; may indi- 
cate faithfully, and in due proportion, the greater features 
of the landscape, and that with God's help we may hope to 
do. 

The critical studies of the day have raised certain ques- 
tions about this book to which we may for a moment give 
attention. We are told that Job is a work of the imagina- 
tion, and that it belongs to a comparatively late period in the 
Hebrew commonwealth. Against that contention it is only 
necessary to say that it rests upon mere literary opinion, 
without a shred of proof. But a conclusive answer is found 
in the book itself. It is a book, as you know, in which the 
whole question of the accountability of man as a morally 
responsible being to a holy God is elaborately discussed. 
Now in that discussion the ten commandments, the Mosaic 
revelation concerning priesthood and sacrifice, and the 
mighty writings of the prophets are never once mentioned. 
And not only so, but the thoughts of the speakers have no 
coloring from them. Even Jehovah does not appeal against 
Job to His statutes. We say, therefore, that the book is 

237 



238 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

what it assumes to be — it goes back of Moses to primitive, 
patriarchal times. It may even antedate the flood. 

That Job is an historical personage we know from the 
inspired use of his name in James v : ii, and Ezekiel xiv : 14, 
20. Indeed, these references to the troubled patriarch show 
the truth of the principle laid down — that if the law existed 
as a divine revelation when Job was written, it would have 
been impossible to keep its shadow off the book. 

Turning now to the book itself we ask ourselves as to its 
central problem. Here we have no difficulty. The central 
question discussed and answered in Job is, why do the 
godly suffer? It is an ever-living question, for the godly still 
suffer — and often, as in Job's case, with no apparent cause. 
Our suffering brothers are better than we, and yet they are 
bereaved while our families remain unbroken, are ill while 
we are well, are diminished in estate while we prosper. 
Why? 

Incidentally, almost the whole sphere of man's relation to 
God is brought into the discussion. And let us remember 
that all this is not set out in a dogmatic way, essay fashion. 
It is not an academic discussion. A living man, bereft of 
children, estate, and health is the subject of it. 

Next, let us think of the literary form of the book. I 
need not remind you that in that book which is at once the 
only divine and the most truly human of writings, the Bible, 
the Holy Spirit uses every form of literary expression. It 
has history, biography, autobiography, and revelation, and 
these in prose, poetry and drama. Job is a drama. I do 
not mean that the story of Job was cast into that form, but 
that it all occurred in that form. 

There are two scenes, one supra-mundane, the other on 
the earth. Of the first we have no description; the second 
is the ash heap outside an Oriental town. 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES . 239 

In the first scene Jehovah and Satan are the dramatis- 
personcE. 

Open to the first chapter, sixth verse : *'Now there was a 
day when the sons of God came to present themselves be- 
fore the Lord, and Satan came also among them." Oh ! the 
mystery of the permitted presence of Satan in the presence 
of God ! The accuser of the brethren began this work very 
early in the history of the race. *'And the Lord said unto 
Satan, whence comest thou ? Then Satan answered the Lord 
and said, From going to and from in the earth, and from 
walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, 
Hast thou considered my servant Job ?" Here is the charac- 
ter of Job as described by the Lord Himself. 

"There is none Hke him in the earth." The best man God 
had! "A perfect and an upright man." Now the word 
"perfect" here is the same word we have in the seventeenth 
of Genesis, when Abram gets that marvelous revelation of 
El Shaddai when He says : "Walk before Me and be thou 
perfect." "And Abram fell on his face." The word simply 
means unmixed, sincere. It does not mean fully sanctified, 
or dead to sin, but it means not double minded. It is the 
equivalent of what the Lord said of Nathaniel, "An Israelite 
in whom there is no guile." And this is Job. "Hast thou 
considered my servant Job, for there is none like him in the 
earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God 
and escheweth evil." 

Do not imagine, dear friends, that in the last chapter of 
this book you have the conversion of that patriarch. He is 
God's man from the beginning of the book, and the best 
man God has on earth. 

"Then Satan answered the Lord and said, Doth Job fear 
God for nought? Hast not thou made a hedge about him, 
and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every 



240 . THINGS NEW AND OLD 

side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his 
substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand 
now, and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee 
to thy face." 

That was Satan's theory about Job's godliness. Men are 
good because it pays men to be good. Satan would perhaps 
resent it, but I have no doubt that he is the author of that 
proverb ''Honesty is the best policy." I think it came 
straight out of the pit. I hate to hear Christians talk that 
kind of talk. We are honest to please Him who called us 
out of darkness into His marvelous light; because it is 
blessed, not because it is politic — neither is it always politic. 

"And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold all that he hath is 
in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. 
So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord." But 
this gives us no light, we say, this deepens the darkness of 
the problem. Why do the godly suffer ? 

Yes, God Himself sometimes puts His dearest children 
into Satan's sieve. ''Satan hath desired to have thee," said 
Christ to Peter, "That he might sift thee like wheat, but I 
have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." We have 
here the same thing. Satan is suffered to have the same 
power over circumstances of our lives. That is one fact 
of revelation and it is terrible. But invariably, along with 
it is another fact of revelation : the power of Satan is strictly 
and absolutely limited by the power of God, and it is com- 
forting. And another fact of revelation : Satan is never per- 
mitted to work destructively upon the children of God. 
Christ put Peter into Satan's sieve, but He Himself fixed 
the time and way of Peter's death. (John xxi : i8, 19.) 

Then you know what happened. Everything went but 
Job's health. Satan's worst enmity, at that stage of things, 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 241 

could not have touched that patriarch's body, but only what 
he had. 

''Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and fell down upon 
the ground and worshipped ; and he said, Naked came I out 
of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither ; the 
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the 
name of the Lord." 

How many a saint of God has found those words helpful 
to express what the heart wanted to say, but in its anguish, 
could not find the words. It is a great thing to see it is the 
Lord. Job does not say, "Satan hath taken away." Instru- 
mentally, he did, undoubtedly, but he does not say "Satan 
hath taken." When Paul was in the prison of Nero he did 
not call himself "the prisoner of Nero," but "the prisoner of 
the Lord." He knew that Nero could have no power over 
him but by his Lord's will. Then we have another of these 
interviews in the second chapter. 

"Again there was a day when the sons of God came to 
present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also 
among them to present himself before the Lord. And the 
Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant 
Job? for there is none Hke him in the earth, a perfect and 
an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil; 
and he still holdeth fast his integrity although thou movedst 
me against him to destroy him without cause." 

"And Satan answered the Lord and said. Skin for skin, 
yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." What a 
lie that is, too ! See the martyrs in the flames ! Will they 
give all that they have, their trust in God, to save their lives 
when by burning a little pinch of incense on the flame be- 
fore the image of Caesar they could go free, but they will 
not burn it ! they burn themselves instead ? Yes, that is the 
16 



242 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

devil's lie. "But put forth thine hand now, and touch his 
bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face." 

Satan has a contemptible opinion of humanity, and I do 
not wonder. It is, only God who says, "I will make a man 
more precious than gold." Satan despises man and hates 
man because God has redeemed him. And man puts such a 
poor estimate upon himself. He sells out so cheaply. Down 
South, where I lived before the war, $800 to $2,000 was the 
price of a man. I have known a good many white men sell 
out a great deal cheaper than that. 

"And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine 
hand ; only spare his life." You see the two things involved ? 
Satan cannot kill that man. Do you suppose anything can 
kill a child of God until God is ready to take Him? He is 
immortal until His Father says, "Come home." There is a 
word in that first chapter of Revelation concerning Christ: 
"I am He that liveth, and was dead, and, behold, I am alive 
forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of Hades and of 
death." He has the keys. Satan cannot open the door of 
death for you or for me. It cannot open until Christ opens 
it. Blessed be God, we are not subject to all kinds of hap- 
penings. 

"And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine 
hand, only spare his life. So Satan went forth from the 
presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the 
sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd 
to scrape himself withal ; and he sat among the ashes." 

And now we come to the second scene in this drama. 
Wonderful words are said by, and above, that ash heap. 
Five persons beside Job come upon the scene where the 
afflicted patriarch sits desolate and anguished. 

First of all comes his wife. Her counsel is brief : "Curse 
God and die." 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 243 

Why do we smile at that? The whole world does. Why- 
do we never think of a broken-hearted mother bereaved of 
her children, bereft of her home, and sore with her unavail- 
ing yearning over her stricken husband ? She says her bitter 
word, and passes. For one I am glad that motherhood comes 
to her again; that once more she holds babes to her heart. 
I have no disposition to make fun of Job's wife. 

And now to poor, desolate Job enter the famous three 
friends : ''Now when Job's three friends heard all this evil 
that was come upon him, they came every one from his own 
place ; Eliphaz, . . . and Bildad, . . . and Zophar, . . . and they 
made an appointment together to come to mourn with him, 
and to comfort him." No wonder they are called, "Job's 
comforters." ''And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, 
and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept ; . . . 
for they saw that his grief was very great." 

"After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day," 
but not his God. 

It is impossible, within the limitations of one address, to 
take up and analyze the speehes of these four men, Eliphaz, 
Bildad, Zophar and Job. All that we may hope to do is to 
summarize — to describe the point of view of each toward the 
real problem of Job's sufferings. Perhaps even- so much 
would not be worth while, if it were not that these, especially 
the three friends, are representative men. They stand for 
three kinds of religious people, and for the attitude of those 
three kinds of people toward the real problems of human 
life. 

And this is unspeakably serious, for Eliphaz, and Bildad, 
and Zophar, stand for the great mass of formal religionists, 
and they have nothing but words for this poor old world on 
the ash heap, and so the world never dreams of looking to 
the church for any real help. 



244 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Some characteristics these three men have in common. 
They are all dogmatists. Each is perfectly sure of his theory 
of the cause and cure of Job's sufferings. Each is so pos- 
sessed by his theory that he has no real sympathy for Job. 
Like all mere dogmatists, their hearts are as hard as the 
nether millstone, and of arctic coldness. And they all have 
a conventional God. Their God is a bundle of attributes, 
not a living, thinking, loving Being. Like all religious dog- 
matists they are cocksure about God. They know what He 
will do, and why. Furthermore, they are at one in the 
theory that Job is a hypocrite; that his fair outward life 
hides some secret sin for which he is under the terrible flail 
of God. 

Their differences lie in the source of their authority as 
interpreters of the providences of God. 

Eliphaz, then, stands for the religious dogmatist who has 
had a mysterious experience, and, therefore, what he says is 
true. 

"Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear 
received a little thereof. In thoughts from the vision of the 
night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, 
and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a 
spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up," 
etc. (iii: 13-15)- 

That is it! Dared Job, who had never had an ''experi- 
ence," contend against himf His theory was the authorita- 
tive one because he had had an "experience." We know 
thee well, O Eliphaz. Thy lineal descendants are with us 
still. 

Bildad is a religious dogmatist of an even more intolerable 
type. He peddles religious platitudes ; he is the prophet of 
the obvious ; a passer on of easy cant. No wonder Job, an 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 245 

able and serious man, breaks out, "Who does not know these 
things?" 

It is Bildad who comes to you when death has emptied 
your arms of one dearer to you than Hfe, and tells you that 
God is good. But, somehow, Bildad is always held in much 
reputation for sanctity. "Isn't Bildad a good man?" they 
say. He says an undisputed thing in such an unctuous way 
that he carried all before him, while souls racked with an- 
guish, cry out upon him for a babbling fool. 

Zophar is yet another kind of dogmatist — perhaps the 
most hopeless of all. Zophar is a traditionalist. He appeals 
to the fathers. "Knowest thou not this of old?" All this, 
of course, is not to say that these men do not utter many 
truths. But over against all that they say stands Jehovah's 
sentence : 

"The Lord said to Eliphaz, the Temanite, My wrath is 
kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye 
have not spoken of me the thing that is right." After that, 
it is useless to pick from the chaff of their words the few 
grains of the wheat of truth. 

Now we have more difficulty with Elihu. I will say quite 
frankly, I have read and re-read his words. There is a 
wonderful unfolding of truth in a certain sense, in the thirty- 
third chapter, for example, about the finding of the ransom. 
He says a great many things which are true and paves the 
way for Jehovah to come upon the scene. 

Then Jehovah takes up the case Himself, and it is a won- 
derful method. He brings Job into a consciousness of His 
power, and that always reaches the conscience. What was it 
that followed the miraculous draught of fishes "Depart 
from me for I am a sinful man." Divine power, and there 
is more than that ; the folly of trying to solve the problems 
of life without God. When Jehovah is done He has a 



246 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

broken man before Him. God was after the death of self 
in that man ; He was after getting Job to see himself. Those 
other men were occupied with what they believed Job's sin- 
ful actions. The twenty-ninth chapter is occupied with what 
Job was ; a good man, but too conscious of it. In that chap- 
ter the personal pronouns "I" and "me" occur forty-five 
times, God is mentioned five times. He was a sincere man, 
but too well aware of it. 

What does he say when Jehovah has revealed Himself to 
him? "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear." A 
real faith may be founded on testimony. Job had a testi- 
mony of God. He believed that testimony, and upon it was 
based a faith that stood all the shocks of suffering and loss. 
But now he has a vision of God Himself. 

What is a vision in its essential meaning You will find 
in the Old Testament that no two visions are circumstanced 
alike, but the effect is always identical. It is an unseen 
thing made real. You believed it all the time; now it is 
knowing the thing. Job says, "I have heard of thee by the 
hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee." Did he 
mean that his mortal eye saw the uncreated One? Oh, no. 
He meant that God had become the actual One to him. 

Now what happened to Job after the dealing had done its 
work, and he had seen and judged himself ? His f ruitfulness 
was doubled. Also he was made a priest to stand between 
God and his three friends, and they had to come to God 
through him. Double fruitfulness, and a higher form of 
service. And now we see the divine solution of the problem 
of the book. How shall I state that solution Let me use 
inspired words. 

*'I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 
Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away ; 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 24) 

and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it that it 
may bring forth more fruit." 

"Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, 
but grievous ; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peace- 
able fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised 
thereby." 

The sufferings of the godly are not penal, but purifying, 
medicinal, healing. 



THE SONG OF SOLOMON. 

We are to look together for a little time to-night at the 
Song of Solomon, and I need not detain you for one mo- 
ment with what the natural man has said about this most 
precious book. There is not a line in it for the natural man. 
It is a profanation for him to look into, and there is very 
little in it for a carnal saint. If we can be satisfied with the 
world, even though we be Christ's, satisfied with a kind of 
formal fellowship with Him, going on in a kind of indiffer- 
ent way, I fear this book will have very little to say to us. 
But if we have entered into His heart, if we have entered 
into the heart and purpose of Him who purchased us to be 
His Bride, that Bride whom He is now cleansing by the 
washing of water by the Word, and whom He is to present 
to Himself without spot or wrinkle, with exceeding joy, 
then I believe our souls will be fed with this book. 

The key of this song we have in the expression that fell 
from the lips of John the Baptist. In the third chapter of 
John, the twenty -ninth verse, he says : "He that hath the 
bride is the bridegroom ; but the friend of the bridegroom, 
which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly." 

The bridegroom and the Bride! These we have in the 



248 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Song of Solomon. Now I need not dwell at all on any ex- 
planation of which might seem at first to be a contradiction, 
namely, that we do not find the church in the Old Testa- 
ment. Very true. We do not find the church described in 
the Old Testament. There is nothing in the Old Testa- 
ment from which, apart from the New, one would have any 
conception whatever of the church. But now that we have 
the New Testament revelation, and can use it to look back on 
the Old Testament, we see two things. First, that allowance 
is dispensationally made in the prophecies for the Church to 
come in. The Old Testament saints did not know it; but 
now that we do know it, we can see that there was a place 
made for it. Another thing. There are, specially in the 
Brides of the Pentateuch, wonderful foreshadowings of this 
bride relationship to Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve pre- 
figured the Church. In the fifth chapter of Ephesians there 
is a direct quotation of the words of Adam to Eve. I need 
not remind you of Isaac's bride, and of Joseph's bride. 
Wonderful prefigurings, and sacred, of this holy relation- 
ship. "Bone of His bone, flesh of his flesh," lifted into the 
very highest place, made one with Him. It is marvelous! 
Not merely as members of His body we are one; we are 
baptized by one Spirit into this body. Just as there was 
identification between Eve and the body of Adam, just so 
there is identification between us and the Lord Jesus. It is 
not a singular belief of mine, for I sit at the feet of the most 
spiritual saints down through all the ages, when I find in the 
Song of Solomon the heart of the Bridegroom for his Bride, 
and I believe we may trace there the wonderful deepening 
and increase and growth of her love to Him, and apprecia- 
tion for Him. 

Chrysostom called it the holy of holies of the Bible. Dis- 
pensationally, the book of John is that; but here we may 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 249 

say we are in the very heart of Christ ; and if Moses must 
put off the shoes from his feet when he stood on holy 
ground, how unshod must we be in soul and spirit. 

Bengel said: "It is a very touchstone of my spiritual 
state. When I come to it cold of heart, it has no voice for 
me; but when I come to it from my knees, and with com- 
munion for Him whom my soul loveth, then it breathes 
the very breath of divine life for me in the very closest and 
holiest of possible relationships." This is not a book which 
gives us the heavenly side of the relationship between the 
Lord Jesus and His Church. The bride is seen here, not 
in her perfected, but in her unperfected state. We are to 
learn here what Jesus is thinking of His Church now, when 
she is unperfected, and full of blemishes, as the bride in the 
book of Canticles was. We see existing a real love by her 
for Him, and we see the workings of His love for her. 

The book shows two lapses and restorations in the part of 
the bride from communion with the bridegroom. No lapse 
from salvation, no severing of relationship; and the struc- 
ture of the book hinges very largely on this. There are two 
places where we are permitted to see the bride out of com- 
munion with Him. 

I believe the book to fall into six divisions. In the first, 
the bride is brought to the bridegroom, and into restful 
communion with Him. Chapter i : i to ii : 7. 

Second division. The bride returns to her former home, 
a lapse from communion; a separation, not of divorce, but 
a separation in the continuity of fellowship, but is brought 
back and is tenderly admonished, ii : 8 to iii : 5. 

Third division, iii : 6 to v : i. Happy communion. Then 
a long passage of communion between the heavenly bride- 
groom and his restored bride. 

Fourth division, v. 2, 3, discloses a separation of heart. 



250 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

She does not go away from Him, but she for a time has no 
longing in her heart, while the purpose of His heart is su- 
preme toward her. It is a different kind of lapse from com- 
munion, but we shall see that later. 

Fifth division, v : 4 to vi : 3. The bride now seeks Him 
and testifies of His beauty. 

Sixth division, vi : 4 to viii : 14. Unbroken fellowship. 
In the first division we have the Bride brought into relation- 
ship with the Bridegroom and entering into intercommunion 
with Him. It is not on the highest level. We get something 
far more intimate later on; she has learned Him better. 
I will take a few passages under these heads or divisions. 

The book opens with the inscription, ''The Song of Solo- 
mon." Then Solomon is the author and the penman. We 
have in the second, third and fourth verses the voice of the 
Bride who has given Him her heart and expresses to Him 
her first love, so to speak. "Let Him kiss me with the kisses 
of His mouth." "Because of the savour of thy good oint- 
ments thy name is as ointment poured forth." You see what 
won her. What won you to Christ? A sense of our needs 
brought us to Him. Many of us came to Christ with very 
little sense of His loveliness or of His beauty. We came not 
to Him with love, but we came with faith and trust, and 
then He won our hearts. Then He unveiled His beauty. 
We saw Him there on the Cross, that wonderful spectacle, 
the God-man dying for us. We loved Him because He first 
loved us, and then there came into our hearts, not so much a 
sense of our love for Him as of the beauty of Christ, and of 
His great love for us, and His name became to us as oint- 
ment poured forth. The burden of sin rolled away, and His 
name became to us the sweetest of all names. Remember, 
that when we have His name spoken of in this way, we are 
to think of His full designation in the New Testament, not 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 251 

in shadow, but the substance, the Lord Jesus Christ. When 
we say it, is there any other name Hke that ? "Draw me, we 
will run after thee," and then next "the King hath brought 
me into His chambers." "The upright love thee." Now, 
it is a love relationship. Remember we began with a trust 
relationship. 

I remember when I was an unconverted man living in the 
West, a practicing lawyer there, I met a famous evangelist 
who said to me, "Do you love Jesus?" I said no. And he 
replied, "Well, you never will be saved until you love Jesus." 
He meant well, but his instruction was unwise. Our first 
touch of Him is a despairing touch, and we love Him be- 
cause He saves us. Thus love wins our love. 

Notice in the first stage of the book, the bride is occupied 
with herself. "I am black," she says. How quickly He 
answers, "but comely." She is beautiful to Him. 

"Oh ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as 
the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because I am 
black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's 
children were angry with me; they made me the keeper 
of the vineyards ; but mine own vineyard have I not kept." 

This is apt to be the case with a Christian brought into a 
conscious and known relationship with Jesus Christ. The 
first thought, and properly so, is, "I am black"; in myself 
there is nothing to fit me for this place, for this intimacy. 
It is not good to be occupied all the time with ourselves. 
He is not occupied with our blackness. It is possible for 
a saint of God to be so pre-occupied with what he is in the 
old Adam as to pass his whole life in a kind of perpetual 
discussion of a dead body. Now why should we not receive 
the sentence of death so that we trust not in ourselves but in 
Christ who raiseth us from the dead ; and why, forever and 
forever be occupied with the old man who is all vile, and 



252 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

nothing but vile Now and then, when the Lord wants to 
show us ourselves, it may be well to take one look at that 
dead body, as Paul calls it, but let us not be occupied with it. 
It is an evidence of immaturity. The Bride is to be occu- 
pied with Him; she is not talking about herself. 

There are some very sweet things in this preliminary 
stage of fellowship. **Tell me oh my beloved, where thy 
flock feeds?" and he answers, "Oh, thou fairest among 
women." Hear that, will you? Well, it is just love, just 
love. But suppose she should keep on all the time by say- 
ing, "Oh, I am black," their fellowship would not progress 
very much. Let us think His thoughts. The old man is 
always bad, but why turn aside to dig it up? Remember 
this, for after awhile it will get to be a habit, and habit is a 
kind of cant. There was a gentleman who had a habit of 
saying, "Oh, my miserable black heart." A friend of his 
became so familiar with it that he would greet him with, 
"Well, friend George, how is your black heart now?" Oh, 
no, we cannot understand it when He says "fairest of 
women," but let us be glad He does say it. 

He sees us in His own perfection, imparted and incorpor- 
ated into His bride, so that to His love, there is answering 
love. We are going to be like Him, just as beautiful as 
Christ. When He looks at His bride He does not see the 
blackness ; His blood has cleansed her, you and me. 

Then she speaks in the ninth verse, "I have compared 
thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's char- 
iots." The best comparison she can make now. What does 
He say "Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy 
neck with chains of gold." Then comes that beautiful pas- 
sage, and He unfolds Himself to her. You know it is only 
when we are in communion with the Lord Jesus, when we 
come into His presence to rest in His love, to commune with 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 253 

Him, not about our blackness, but about His beauty, to tell 
out in our poor way our heart-growing conception of His 
charms, it is then that we learn things about Him, it is then 
only He can unfold Himself. 

Now look at the second chapter. "I am the rose of 
Sharon, and the lily of the valleys," and then He says a 
wonderful thing to her, "As the lily among thorns, so is 
my love among the daughters." Get that contrast. The 
Spirit of God is very fond of lilies. Then there is the 
thought of thorns. His Bride is like a lily. She answers 
back, "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is 
my beloved among the sons." Pretty good, but not like 
the other. Trees of the wood are very beautiful, and some 
yield fruit, and so she thinks of the apple tree. You see she 
does not know Him when He says, "I am the rose of Sharon, 
and the lily of the valley." It is a kind of figure of speech. 
He loves to disclose Himself. You know that "Beholding 
as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are changed into 
the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
the Lord." 

Now in the second division, I see the Bride returns evi- 
dently to her former home. We do not know why. The 
Lord does not go and talk with His neighbors about His 
domestic affairs. The neighbors may see that something 
has happened. Let me read the eighth verse. 

"The voice of my beloved, behold, he cometh leaping 
upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved 
is like a roe or a young hart : behold, he standeth behind our 
wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself 
through the lattice." He is coming for her. What was the 
house we lived in? When we lapse back into the world 
He can bring us out ; He can bring us back into fellowship. 
Hear her : 



254 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

"My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, 
my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, 
the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; 
the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of 
the turtle is heard in our land." Over in our land the voice 
of the turtle is heard. Come back, my dear. Arise, my 
love, come away. Oh, are you in the world, my beloved? 
Hear this, "Arise and come away." There are better things 
in love's land. Newport is a poor place compared to love's 
land. Now here is the sweet admonition, "Oh, my dove." 
Fancy calling us that. That is the new nature. Hawk, bird 
of prey, by the old nature; dove by the new nature. "Oh 
my dove, that hideth in the clefts of the rock." He begins 
by reminding her of her place, safe in the cleft of the Rock. 
Bengel said, he entered into the heart of Christ by a great 
spear wound. Now that is where she is. She has been out 
of communion, but in a safe place, "in the secret places of 
the stairs." "Places" is italicized, showing it is a supplied 
word. Would the bride come up a public staircase as she 
comes into the presence of her dear bridegroom? Not a bit. 
A secret stair for her. Now the next thing "Let me see thy 
countenance." Come to me. Something else. "Let me 
hear thy voice." Oh, He wants us near, after we have lapsed 
from our fellowship with Him. He wants us to come to 
Him by the secret of the stairs, having access by the Spirit. 
And then He has got a tender little word, "Take us the 
foxes, the Httle foxes, that spoil the vines." The little foxes 
of tempers, faults, made much of and accentuated, and that 
makes a perpetual lot of little issues with Him. 

Her confession here is very beautiful, down to the fifth 
verse of the third chapter. Then she breaks out in a beauti- 
ful song. "Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness?" 
And he answers, "Behold, thou art fair." 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 255 

We have that beautiful passage from the sixteenth verse 
of the third chapter to the first verse of the sixth. "I am 
come into my garden, my sister, my spouse." Beautiful 
communion. 

Now comes that second lapse. Here is the bridegroom 
at the door. "I sleep, but my heart waketh : it is the voice 
of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, 
my love, my dove, my undefiled : for my head is filled with 
dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." 

He is out there in the darkness on His mission. How 
does she answer "I have put off my coat ; how shall I put 
it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" 

This washing represents the washing of the laver. In the 
beginning she was occupied with her blackness. Now she 
is occupied with her whiteness. If there is anything worse 
than to be occupied with your bad self, it is to be occupied 
with your good self. It represents that state of spirituality 
that becomes too sublimated to think of that world out in 
the darkness. There is a danger in a certain attainment of 
spirituality. You want to get with a few who can talk just 
like you, and who have wonderful experiences just like you. 

**My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and 
my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my 
beloved ; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers 
with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock." 

Oh, so occupied with her own spirituality, and yet it all 
came from him, and now His gifts are occupying her, not 
Himself. "I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had 
withdrawn himself and was gone." In the beginning of 
your fellowship you bore all sorts of things, but when the 
feet get washed, and the hands drip with perfumery and all 
spiritual graces, He will teach us the lesson. He went on. 
He could not wait, and now she seeks Him, poor thing. 



256 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

You know the mother of our Lord went a whole day sup- 
posing Him to be in the company, and she turned back and 
sought Him for three days sorrowing. It does not do to 
take things for granted in our fellowship with Jesus Christ. 

''I sought him but I could not find him ; I called him but 
he gave me no answer. The watchman that went about the 
city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the 
keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge 
you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that 
ye tell him that I am sick of love. What is thy beloved more 
than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what 
is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so 
charge us?" 

What is your Christ more than Buddha? What is your 
Christ more than any one else? Then she breaks into that 
marvelous description of Him : 

"My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten 
thousand His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is alto- 
gether lovely." 

Now that is better than to say He is an apple tree in the 
trees of the wood. "He is altogether lovely. This is my be- 
loved, O daughters of Jerusalem." 

Then suddenly He comes. "Thou art beautiful O my 
love as Tirzah." Communion again. He can now take her 
into His thoughts for Israel. Then from the tenth verse 
to the fourteenth the bride gives a closing song. She is 
thinking not of herself, nor of herself, but of the great 
mission they two have. And it closes very beautifully, 
"Make haste, my beloved" like that refrain at the end of 
Revelation, "Come quickly. Lord Jesus, come quickly." 

If I have helped any of you to a better understanding of 
this book, then I may add one thing : Study it after prayer 
when you are sure you are in fellowship with Him. Not 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 257 

when there is a cloud between you and Him; get restora- 
tion, and then when it is all sweet, ask Him to speak to you 
out of it. 



THE CHURCH AND THE CHURCHES.* 

I. The Church Which Is His Body. 

Whoever reads with attention the Acts and the Epistles 
observes the frequent occurrence of the word church, in 
both the plural and singular forms of that word. Indeed, 
so constantly does the word recur that it is evidently of 
most urgent importance to the student of Scripture to un- 
derstand its meanings. The Epistles, especially, concern 
the church and the churches. Very little is said about Israel, 
very little about the kingdom. It is the church which is 
prominently in view in this large and important part of the 
Bible. Evidently, then, it is impossible to read those writ- 
ings intelligently unless we are able to define the various 
senses in which the Holy Spirit uses that word. 

The Greek word, ecclesia, translated "church," is formed 
from ek — "out" or "out of," and kalleo — "to call," and in 
itself, therefore, signifies the "outcalled." But, since the 
word is never used of a single individual, but always of 
many individuals together, it takes on the larger meaning of 
an "outcalled assembly." It is thus appropriately used, not 
only of the New Testament church and of the New Testa- 
ment churches, but also of Israel in the wilderness (Acts 
vii : 38) , and of the town meeting of Ephesus (Acts xix : 32, 
39, 41, "assembly"). 



*Addresses given at the Fourth Mid-winter Bible Conference, 
Boston, Mass., February 2-8, 1904. 
17 



258 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

The word means, in itself, no more than a called out 
assembly. The Israelites were called out of Egypt by the 
words of Moses and Aaron; the town meeting of Ephesus 
was called out of the mass of Ephesians by the guild of 
silversmiths ; the New Testament church is called out of the 
mass of the inhabitants of the earth, Jews and Gentiles, by 
the preaching of the Gospel of the Grace of God. In each 
use of the word the distinctive character, privileges, and 
responsibilities of the called out assembly must be deter- 
mined by the declarations of Scripture concerning each. 
But the mere use of the word church affords no more war- 
rant for making the assembly of Israel in the wilderness 
identical with, or a part of, the New Testament ecclesia, than 
for so identifying the town meeting at Ephesus. As a mat- 
ter of fact Israel in the wilderness and the New Testament 
church have but one thing in common — the same God. 

In this, and the addresses which are to follow^ we are to 
consider the word only as applied to the ''church which is 
his body, the fullness of him which filleth all in all" (Eph. 
i: 22, 23), and to the local assemblies called churches in the 
Acts, Epistles, and in the Revelation; and we are first of 
all to look at the Scripture teaching concerning "the church 
which is his body." 

The Historic Background. 

The church is first mentioned in Scripture by our Lord 
Himself in the words recorded in Matthew xyi:i8, and 
that in a setting which is both interesting and illuminative. 

Note, first, that our Lord does not mention the church 
until the rejection by Israel of the kingdom of heaven, and 
of Himself as King has become manifest. In Matt, xi: 16- 
24, Jesus declares the national rejection both of John the 
Baptist, the herald, and of Himself, the King. For that 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 259 

generation there remained but judgment; and that great 
discourse closes with a wholly new message. It is no more 
"repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," but : "Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest" — a very diiferent proclamation. 

In Matt, xii our Lord puts Himself morally outside of 
Israel, identifying Himself and His disciples with David 
and his followers in the time of the rejection of that king 
by Israel (Matt, xii: 1-4; i Sam. xx, xxi, xxii), and again 
(Matt, xii: 40-45) declares judgment upon that generation. 

In Matt, xiii Jesus goes "out of the house" (Israel) and 
utters the "mysteries of the kingdom": — i. e., those things 
which are to be fulfilled between His first and second ad- 
vents, and which have already found their fulfillment in 
Christendom — the so-called "Christian world." Then, in 
Matthew xvi. He announces a purpose hitherto hidden in 
God (Eph. iii:9, 10), and constituting something quite dif- 
ferent from either the Old Testament f oreview of the king- 
dom, or from "the mysteries of the kingdom" described in 
Matt, xiii; but which, Hke the mysteries of the kingdom, 
must be fulfilled between the first and second advents, name- 
ly, "I will build my church" — my "called out assembly." 

In other words : Israel being under judicial blindness and 
rejection (Matt, xiii: 13-15), two things are announced to 
go on contemporaneously — the development in Christendom 
of the mixed condition — wheat and tares, good and bad 
fish — called "mysteries of the kingdom" (Matt, xiii: 11); 
and also that other "mystery" (Rom. xvi: 25; Eph. 1:9; 
iii : 4, 5), the church, which He purposed through the procla- 
mation of Himself as "the Christ, the Son of the living 
God," to build upon Himself as the Rock foundation — a 
called out assembly, the church. 



26o THINGS NEW AND OLD 

How the Church Is Formed. 

Closely connected with our Lord's announcement of His 
purpose to build the church are repeated references to the 
baptism with the Holy Spirit; and these promises concern- 
ing the Spirit are, in turn, intimately associated with instruc- 
tions for a world-wide preaching of the Gospel. The 
disciples were bidden to tarry at Jerusalem until endued with 
power from on high, before beginning the testimony to 
Christ, the effect of which has been the outcalling of the 
church (Luke xxiv: 46-49; Acts i: 4, 5, 8). 

These two ideas are inseparably linked in the final instruc- 
tions of Christ — the world-wide ministry, and the baptism 
with the Spirit. And i Cor. xii:i2, 13 supplies the fact 
which links the church inseparably to the baptism and the 
preaching: — "As the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of that one body, being many, are one 
body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all bap- 
tized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether 
we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into 
one Spirit." 

That, then, is the church, of which Jesus Christ, crucified, 
risen, ascended, glorified, seated, is the Head (Eph. i : 22, 
23). That this is a fact of immense positional importance to 
the individual believer is evident. Indeed, the whole posi- 
tional doctrine of the Epistles is based upon this great fact, 
that every believer is thus positionally identified with Christ 
Himself. It is a fact which explains and defines the im- 
portant expression, "in Christ Jesus." Baptized into Christ 
by the Spirit, every believer is "in Christ," or "in Christ 
Jesus" (Eph. i: I, 3, 4, 6-13; ii:6, 10, etc.). This exalted 
position is especially the theme of Ephesians. But it is 
necessary to remember that our union to Christ as members 
of His body is effected by that same baptism with the Holy 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 261 

Spirit which our Lord connected with the whole world-wide 
service of preaching the Gospel. 

Evidently the truth that the church which our Lord an- 
nounced His intention to build would be composed of be- 
lievers baptized into Himself by the Spirit, was one of the 
"many things" which the disciples were not "able to bear" 
until after they should be illuminated by the Spirit, and 
which were reserved for the great ministry of Paul (John 
xvi:i2, 13; Eph. iii:3-io). 

But, now that the revelation through Paul has been made, 
we may, nay we must, in coming to an understanding of 
how the church is formed, unite the three facts — the world- 
wide preaching, the baptism with the Spirit, and the build- 
ing of the church. 

In other words, Christ is building His church through the 
church itself, by means of the baptism with the Spirit. An 
illustration of this is afforded by the events of Pentecost. 
On that day the first event was the uniting, by the baptism 
with the Holy Spirit, of the gathered disciples to Christ 
their risen Head. But those disciples were, as we know 
from I Cor. xii : 7-31, united to Christ as living members of 
His body in an orderly way with reference to the activities 
of that body. Some were made apostles, some prophets, 
some teachers, some miracle-workers, some healers, some 
helpers, some rulers, some speakers of tongues ( i Cor. xii : 
28, etc.). And all this was done sovereignly, in God's own 
wisdom (i Cor. xii: 11, 18, 24). 

Furthermore, these members, thus united to Christ and 
gifted by the Spirit for the various activities of the world- 
wide ministry were, like the members of the human body, 
subject to the will of the Head. "There are differences of 
administrations, but the same Lord" (i Cor. xii: 5.) And, 
in ordering as Head and Lord the uses of His members, He 



262 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

distributes the gifted members, here apostles, to do apostolic 
work ; there prophets, to minister that gift ; in another place 
evangelists; and elsewhere pastors and teachers (Eph. iv: 
ii). But all these varied gifts ,exercised here and there as 
the Head directs, are to one definite purpose : "for the per- 
fecting of saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the 
building up of the body of Christ" (Eph. iv: 12, R. V.). 
And this "building up" looks toward a definite termination : 
"unto a full-grown man, even the measure of the stature of 
the fullness of Christ" (Eph. iv: 13). 

In other words, as the human body, having received all of 
its members, and having developed all of its members, be- 
comes complete, so it will be with the church which is 
Christ's body. It builds itself up, through the gifts, under 
the Lordship of Christ the Head, until every member is 
there. As the Spirit father says : "All the body, fitly 
framed and knit together, through that which every joint 
[member, gift] supplieth, according to the working in due 
measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the 
body, unto the building up of itself in love" (Eph. iv: 16, 
R. v.). 

We now have a complete account of the formation of the 
church which is His body, and may return to our pentecostal 
illustration. Baptized into one body and vitally united to 
Christ, every one of the disciples was definitely endued with 
gift for some particular service. Under the headship of 
Christ, Peter stood up to preach, and the effect of the 
preaching was that "the same day there were added to them 
about three thousand souls" (Acts ii:4i). The body, 
formed by the baptism with the Spirit on the day of Pente- 
cost, had begun the building of itself up, through the testi- 
mony that Jesus was "both Christ and Lord" (Acts ii : 36). 

But not all who heard the testimony were converted and 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 263 

joined to the body of Christ — far from it. The disciples 
were still an ecclesia — a called out assembly, the church. 
And so it will be until the body is complete. 

The idea that in building His church Christ is converting 
the world is not only negatived by the very word ecclesia, 
since "to call out of" implies that some called do not come 
out, but is also negatived by express Scripture {e. g., Acts 
XV : 14), and by all experience. Paul found that while unto 
some he was the savor of life unto life, to others he was the 
savor of death unto death (2 Cor. ii: 15, 16). His gospel 
was *'hid to them that are lost" (2 Cor. iv: 3) ; and He was 
made all things to all men that he "might by all means save 
some" (i Cor. ix:22). 

All Jerusalem was not converted on the day of Pentecost, 
neither subsequently. Nor was Antioch converted, nor Cor- 
inth, nor Rome, nor Paris, nor London, nor New York, nor, 
it may be added, the smallest village in Christendom. The 
church is, and will remain, an ecclesia. The world is to be 
brought back to God, but through the kingdom, not the 
church. 

The Relationships of the Church. 

The church is a part of the kingdom of God, but is not the 
kingdom of God — of it, but not the whole of it, precisely, as 
the kingdom of Saxony is in the German empire, or as 
Pennsylvania is in the United States. It would be inexact 
to speak of the kingdom of Saxony and the German empire 
as equivalent expressions, though both of those bodies poli- 
tic have much in common — language, literature, laws, su- 
preme head, etc. So the church is in the kingdom of God, 
but not co-extensive with the kingdom. The kingdom of 
God includes all moral intelligences in every age and every 
sphere which are willingly subject to the divine authority. 



264 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

This appears sufficiently from Heb. xii : 22, 23 : "But ye are 
come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, 
which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, 
and to the spirits of just men made perfect." 

The "church which is His body" is not before the mind of 
the Spirit in the parables and other teachings of our Lord 
concerning "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 
xiii:ii). The sphere of profession in the widest sense, 
during the present age, is the subject of those parables. 
Doubtless the "children of the kingdom" (Matt, xiii : 38) 
are the individuals who, by baptism with the Spirit, are 
formed into the body of Christ ; but the body, as such, is in 
no way the subject of the "mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven." For the body is itself a distinct "mystery" (Eph. 
iii:i-ii), the unfolding of which was committed to the 
Apostle Paul. It is a striking fact that while the church is 
mentioned but three times in the Gospels, and but nineteen 
times in the Acts, the word occurs sixty-two times in Paul's 
Epistles. 

The "church which is His body" is related to the kingdom 
of heaven as it will be set up at the second coming of Christ, 
as the present Queen of Great Britain is related to that king- 
dom, namely, as being the bride of the King (Eph. v : 29-32 ; 
2 Tim. ii: 12; Rev. vi : 10), and so associated with him in 
rule. It cannot be too clearly held that the work of God in 
this dispensation is not the gathering of subjects of the com- 
ing kingdom, but the outcalling of the ekklcsia, the co-ruler 
with Christ of the coming kingdom. Individually the "many 
members" are by birth both royal and priestly, but the mil- 
lennial authority is corporate rather than personal. Eph. 
v: 30, 31 ("For we are members of His body, of His flesh, 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 265 

and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his 
father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they 
two shall be one flesh") is quoted from Gen. ii: 23, 24, and 
connects therefore with Gen. i : 26-28, the central idea of 
which is joint dominion. 

But the church is related to the coming kingdom in that 
"the bride, the Lamb's wife," is also the ''new" or "holy" 
Jerusalem (Rev. xxi:2, 3, 9-27). The distinctive glory of 
the ancient Jerusalem was that it was "the city (or capital) 
of the great king" (Matt, v : 35 ; Psa. cxxxv : 21 ; Isa. ii : 3) , 
and that it contained the Temple (Psa. Ixviii : 29; cxxii : 6- 
9). Both these distinctions meet in the church, the heavenly 
Jerusalem. It is "the tabernacle of God" (Rev. xxi : 2, 3), 
and the "Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple 
of it." 

It is not at all that the earthly Jerusalem is done away dur- 
ing the kingdom age, but that the church, the Lamb's wife, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, is over it, as both the place and the 
means of the manifestation of God who dwells in it. 

The "church which is His body" is related to God as 
temple and habitation (Eph. ii : 19-21 ; i Pet. ii : 4-7; 2 Cor. 
vi : 16) . Here we are brought into the most intimate connec- 
tion with Old Testament type and prophecy concerning 
Christ. For, while the Old Testament vision does not see 
the church, it does see Christ as the f ulfiller of all the great 
types — the association of the church with His sufferings and 
glories, and with the mystery of His person, being reserved 
for the New Testament revelation. 

The Tabernacle (and afterward the Temple, which was 
but the Tabernacle made permanent) was primarily the 
place of Jehovah's abode among His people (Ex. xxv:8; 
xxix: 43-46; Lev. xxvi: 11, 12; 2 Kings xi: 13; Eph. ii: 
22). Secondly, the Tabernacle or Temple was a house of 



266 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

worship (Eph. 11:21; 1 Pet. ii:5; Heb. xiii:i5, 16). 
Here the figure changes. Seen as one body with Christ, the 
church is a habitation of God, and also His temple, or 
spiritual house. Seen as "many members" ( i Cor. xii : 20) , 
the church is ''an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacri- 
fices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (i Pet. ii: 5). In 
other words, the "many members" of the one body are an 
hierarchy of priests, of which Jesus Christ is the High 
Priest. The stones of the "spiritual house" are "living 
stones" and utter the praises of the God who abides in that 
house. It is as if every stone of Solomon's Temple had 
broken out with praise and prayer. The manner of God's 
possession of the "spiritual house," which is His temple and 
habitation, is "through the Spirit." The Spirit builds the 
house (i Cor. xii: 12, 13) and then takes up His abode in 
it (Eph. ii: 22) as the manifestation of God. The Spirit is 
the holy cementer of the living stones to each other and to 
the "head of the corner," Christ; and the Spirit animates 
each stone with praise and prayer. 

The relationhsips of the church to Christ have already, of 
necessity, been indicated, but may be briefly repeated. 

(a) Corporately the church is "His body, the fulness of 
Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. i : 23). A body is for ser- 
vice and for manifestation. Every "member" is united to 
the body in a specific and not in an indefinite way (i Cor. 
xii: 12-27). That is to say, each "member" is assigned in 
the divine will to the exercise of a specific function in the 
service of the Head ( i Cor. xii : 4-1 1 ) . These functions are 
called "gifts" ; and with such designation to specific function 
goes, as part of the "gift," an enablement or "manifestation 
of the Spirit" (i Cor. xii: 7). In true Christian service, 
therefore, nothing is left to self-pleasing or self-will. We 
serve the Head, whose members we are, when we take joy- 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 267 

fully the place assigned us, ministering there as He may 
direct. The foot must not try to do the work of the hand. 

The body is also for manifestation. By His incarnation 
the Word, who had previously been invisible to men, became 
visible by His human body (John i: 14; i John i: i, 2). 
Precisely so, in the divine will and intent, ''the church which 
is His body" is charged with the marvelous privilege of 
making Him still visible to men (2 Cor. iv: 10, 11; i Pet. 
ii : 9, R. V. ; Gal. ii : 20 ; Phil, i : 21 ; John ix : 5, with Matt. 
v:i4). 

(b) The church is the bride of Christ (Eph. v 129-32; 
2 Cor. xi:2; Rev. xix:6-9). Since the divine thought of 
marriage is absolute identification, absolute oneness, it is 
obvious that the eternal position of the church is to be that 
of Christ Himself (Eph. v:3o; i:6; John xvii:io, 16, 
21-24). 

Upon the relation of "the church which is His body" to 
the world, Scripture is absolutely silent. It may therefore 
be said that the church, corporately, has no relation to the 
world. It should be needless to add that a large and most 
important body of teaching has to do with the individual 
Christian and the world. 

Since the gift of evangelist is one of the gifts for the up- 
building of the body of Christ, and since that body can grow 
only by winning "members" from the world, it may be said 
inferentially that the relation of "the church which is His 
body" to the world of mankind is a missionary relation — to 
save men out of the world. But this mission is, in a purely 
Biblical sense, the mission not of the body, corporately con- 
sidered, but of each individual Christian. 

The relation of "the church which is His body" to the 
heavenly inhabitants is, in grace, so exalted as almost to stag- 
ger faith. Not until we see that this dispensation is distin- 



268 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

guished from all past and all future dispensations by the 
reign of grace (Rom. v:2i) is it possible to receive this 
truth. 

(a) The church is related to the Old Testament saints as 
a bride is related to the "friends" of her bridegroom. This 
is clearly stated by John the Baptist, the last of the Old Tes- 
tament saints : "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom ; 
but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and hear- 
eth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the brigegroom's voice : 
this my joy therefore is fulfilled" (John iii : 29). Abraham 
was called "the friend of God" ( Jas. ii : 23 ; Isa. xli : 8) . 

(b) No passage speaks of the relation of the church cor- 
porately to the angels, but it may be surely derived by infer- 
ence from Heb. ii : 12, where ekklesia is the inspired rendering 
of the Hebrew qahal in Psa. xxii : 22. This quotation 
from Psa xxii indicates how the Old Testament, while not 
mentioning the church, yet leaves room for it. For certain- 
ly the church, and not Israel, is meant in Psa. xxii : 22, for 
this part of the Psalm is not only messianic, but unmistak- 
ably post-resurrectional. Furthermore, the passage is 
quoted in Heb. ii : 12 to show Christ's oneness with the 
church. It follows that not only individual Christians, but 
the church corporately is brought into the position of the 
Son Himself as described in the first and second chapters of 
Hebrews. These chapters have been called by Dr. A. T. 
Pierson "the inspired philosophy of the plan of salvation." 
Briefly, the doctrine is that the Son of God was better than 
the angels" as being Himself "God" and "Lord" (i:8-io). 
In incarnation He entered humanity, which was "made a 
little lower than the angels" (ii : 7), that He might save men. 
Having saved them, He brings them into His own primal 
position, "for both he that sanctifieth and they who are 
sanctified are all of one" (ii: 11) ; whereupon follows His 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 269 

triumph "in the midst of the church" (ii: 12), which is thus 
associated with Him above the angels. 

(c) The relation of the church to future judgments is still 
measured by her identification with Christ, i Cor. vi : 2, 3 : 
**Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and 
if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to 
judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that ye shall 
judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this 
life?" So far, then, from becoming the subjects of future 
judgments, the "many members" of Christ's body are asso- 
ciated with Him in judgment. 

II. THE CHURCHES. 

In a preceding address we have been looking together at 
the word church in its larger meaning of Christ's "body, the 
fulness of him that filleth all in all." We have seen that the 
church, in that sense of the word, is a living organism in 
the same way that the human body is a living organism 
(i Cor. xii: 12) ; that it is composed of a Head, Christ in 
glory ; and of living members, the whole number of the re- 
generate between the two advents of Christ; that these 
living members are, by the Holy Spirit, baptized into Christ 
and into each other (i Cor. xii: 13) ; and that these mem- 
bers are gathered out of the world, and edified by means of 
believers who, endued by the Holy Spirit with diverse gifts 
(i Cor. xii: 4-28), are themselves gifts of the risen and 
glorified Head to various companies and localities on earth 
(Eph. iv:8, 11-16). This church not only as to its Head, 
but in part as to its members is in heaven. It is obvious, 
therefore, that it cannot be in its entirety a visible church. 

We come now to consider a second common use of the 
word church in the New Testament Scriptures, namely as 



270 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

applied to local assemblies of professed believers. Such use 
is found in such passages as, "the church of God which is at 
Corinth" (i Cor. i:2) ; "the church that is in their house" 
(Rom. xvi: 5). 

Doubtless both meanings were in the mind of our Lord 
in His twofold use of the word (Matt, xvi : 18), "Upon this 
rock will I build my church; and the gates of hades shall 
not prevail against it," and (Matt, xviii : 17), "and if he shall 
neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church." The first of 
the passages quoted could only refer to that body, not one 
member of which shall ever perish ; the second passage im- 
plies a visible brotherhood competent to deal with ques- 
tions of discipline. 

The First Churches. 

As a result of the first preaching of the Gospel after the 
descent of the Holy Spirit, "about three thousand" souls 
were converted and "added unto them," i. e., unto the group 
of believers upon whom the Holy Spirit had fallen. This 
body of believers, all in Jerusalem, constituted the first of 
the local churches. For a moment, as one may say, the 
church which is his body was identical with the church at 
Jerusalem. Both were one. But when the Gospel broke its 
Jewish limitations, and some went as far as Antioch "preach- 
ing the Lord Jesus," a "great number believed," and these 
believers are immediately called a church (Acts xi 119-26; 
xiii: I, etc.). From Antioch, in turn, preachers — this time 
the great Apostle Paul, with Barnabas — were "sent forth 
by the Holy Ghost" (Acts xiii 14) ; and, as had previously 
happened at Jerusalem and Antioch, the believers called out 
by the preaching of the Gospel, in every place, are, collective- 
ly spoken of as churches in those places (Acts xv:4i; 
xvi: 5; xviii: 22). 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 271 

The Order of the Apostolic Churches. 

At first the churches seem to have been simple assemblies 
of the Christians of a place or city, after the order of our 
Lord's saying (Matt. xviii:2o), "For where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst 
of them." It will be remembered that these words are in 
close connection with verse 17, in which a local church is 
evidently in view. It is as if our Lord answered the un- 
spoken question in the disciples' minds, "But what is this 
'church' of which you speak, to which we are to 'tell' the 
sin of an unrepenting brother?" by saying: "It is where 
two or three are gathered together in (or 'into') my name" 
— the local assembly of Christ's disciples. The words imply 
more than mere human volition. "Are gathered" intimates 
a fellowship induced by the Holy Spirit in renewed hearts. 

And it is most blessed that Matt, xviii : 20 ever remains 
the resource of believers in a time of confusion and apostasy. 
Such a gathering is a church. And I trust I may be par- 
doned by any whose practices I may cross, if I add that no 
conceivable good purpose is subserved by calling such a 
gathering anything but a church. It is true that "assembly" 
might, lexically, have been a better word for our English 
translation of ecclesia, but this is true of many other words 
— among them atonement, for example — and with all else 
which unhappily divides Christians to-day it raises a needless 
and harmful issue, not far removed from that "strife about 
words to no profit" against which we are solemnly warned 
for these last days (2 Tim. ii: 14) to insist on the words 
"assembly" or "gathering." There is an opprobrium in- 
separable from true separation (2 Tim. iii : 12), but there is 
a needless insistence on new terms, and idle peculiarities, 
which brings a just opprobrium. A local gathering of be- 
lievers unto His Name is a church. Let it be called so. 



2^2 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

It is wholly congruous with Acts xx : 7 to assume that the 
apostolic churches met on the first day of the week to break 
bread in remembrance of the Lord, as a testimony to His 
death, and expression of the unity of His one body, and a 
renewal of the hope of His coming (Luke xxiiiiQ, 20; 
Acts ii: 42; i Cor. xi : 23-26 ; i Cor. x: 16, 17). 

It is only when the one passage (Acts xx: 7), "And upon 
the first day of the week, when the disciples came together 
to break bread," is hardened into a new Leviticus, so that 
the heart looks for blessing to the table instead of to Him- 
self, and would be disquieted and unblessed if the table were 
wanting on any particular Lord's day, though He, assuredly, 
would be there, that the simple and beautiful custom be- 
comes a snare. Our Lord would have no legality with His 
table, but left a gracious liberty in His "as often." 

But, while such was the simple order at the first, the 
Acts and Epistles note as of great importance, and that at a 
very early date, the designation of elders or bishops (the 
office is identical, Titus i : 5 and 7). 

At first {e. g., Acts xiv: 23) Paul, an Apostle, with Bar- 
nabas, an apostolic man, ordained or appointed the elders. 
This seems never to have been done at the first evangelistic 
visit to a place, but when the church, outgathered at the first 
visit, was revisited. The reason is obvious. Time was nec- 
cessary for the development and manifestation of the gifts 
and graces necessary to the elders' office. 

Later, it became necessary for the Apostle to send ex- 
perienced and spiritual fellow laborers, as Titus and Timo- 
thy, to ordain (or appoint) elders. But when this stage had 
been reached, and the peculiar apostolic discernment could 
no longer be available, it is most beautiful to see that the 
Holy Spirit defines for all time in sacred Scripture, the tests 
by which the true elders may be known. 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 273 

As in so many other things, the Scriptures replace the 
Apostolic presence and authority. 

As to the mode of ordination of elders, it is indisputable 
that the word in Acts xvi : 2^ translated "ordained" means 
to elect or appoint by extending the hand. Rotherham 
translates : "Moreover appointing by vote for them in each 
assembly, elders." The Septuagint denotes those who as- 
sisted Moses (Exodus xviii:25) by the same Greek word 
translated elder in Titus and Timothy; and reference to 
Deut. i : 13 will show that Moses but ratified the people's 
choice. This, it need scarcely be said, is not referred to as 
authoritative for a New Testament church, but as illustrat- 
ing the meaning of Acts xiv : 23. The Holy Spirit alone 
qualifies elders (Acts xx : 28) but the Scriptures guide the 
saints in recognizing and appointing them. 

Deacons (the word means servant) are also described and 
appointed. It is questionable whether Acts vi: 1-6 refers 
definitely to this office, nor is the question vital. What we 
do know is that a New Testament local church as fully 
developed under the apostolic authority and direction, is 
defined in Phil, i: i, "The saints in Christ Jesus which are 
at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." 

It has been contended that as we have no apostles we can 
have no appointment of elders and deacons, though we 
readily discern them. But in face of the Word of God in 
Titus i: 9 and i Timothy iii: 1-13, and of the emphasis con- 
stantly put in the Acts and Epistles upon the orderly ap- 
pointment of these officers, we cannot doubt that now, as 
then, our Lord would have His churches constituted after 
His own divine order. 

That the practice of ordination has been monstrously 
abused is no reason for its abandonment, but only for a re- 
turn to its right use. 
18 



274 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Unbiblical Perversions. 

In Scripture, ordination (which simply means appoint- 
ment) is never to preach or to administer ordinances, so 
called. Ministry of the word is wholly by gift (Eph. iv: ii, 
12), ordination is to the local offices of elder and deacon. It 
should be added that of one elder over a local church, or one 
bishop over many churches the Scripture knows nothing. 
The divine order is many bishops over one church. 

Again, the Scripture knows nothing of a church composed 
of churches — as the Methodist church, the Presbyterian 
church, etc., meaning many churches united into one church. 
It is wholly a Roman Catholic perversion retained in Protest- 
ant use. Any such "church" must be, like Romanism itself, 
simply a sect. In every such "church" there survives the 
papal leaven of a required love of and "loyalty" to, the sect. 
Innumerable are the evils produced by this utterly unscrip- 
tural practice. The multiplication of churches in every vil- 
lage, when one true apostolic church would include easily 
and naturally all Christians in the place; the reproduction 
on heathen ground of these wholly unnecessary divisions — 
these are but a few of the evils. The local church is the 
beginning and end of divine organisation for this age. 
Whatever is less than "saints with the bishops and deacons" 
is to wilfully leave the divine organization incomplete (Titus 
i : 5) ; whatever is more than the local church, is a man-made 
addition to the divine organization. 

If it is objected that Christian fellowship and missionary 
effort would fail if local churches are not somehow united 
organically, the sufficient and triumphant answer is that 
neither Christian fellowship nor missionary effort suffered 
during the first century, but, on the contrary, that century 
remains the ideal in these respects never even approximated 
by a sect divided by Protestantism; still less by Romish 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 275 

organic solidarity. May the Lord give us grace to take our 
place about Himself, in the midst, neither deliberately refus- 
ing to perfect the divine order, nor, on the other hand, going 
beyond it. 



THE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND IN- 
DWELLING OF THE SPIRIT. 

By C. I. Scofield. 

I am to speak to you, during this conference, if God 
gives strength, upon the Holy Spirit. I am glad to be per- 
mitted to speak on this very important subject, but I do 
want, at the outset, to say that I think we can very easily be 
too much occupied with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit 
in this dispensation is not in the world to occupy us with Him- 
self, but with the Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe the chief 
characteristic of the Spirit-filled life is the heart occupation 
and exaltation of our ever blessed Saviour-Lord. Never- 
theless there is in the New Testament a very important body 
of revelation concerning the Spirit, and surely it is there for 
our learning, and therefore we may, with glad hearts, give 
attention to it. 

I want to speak, first of all, as clearing the ground, upon 
the personal relationships of the Holy Spirit, and if you 
will turn with me to the fourteenth chapter of John and the 
sixteenth and seventeenth verses you will find indicated in 
two short words from our Lord's lips, words which may 
easily be fixed in the memory, two of these relationships. 

You see that I am assuming something. I am assum- 
ing that you all believe that when we speak of the Holy 
Spirit we are speaking of a person, just as really as when 
we speak of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That 



276 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

we are not speaking of an emanation from God, or an 
influence proceeding from God, nor a state of being, but 
we are speaking of the third person of the adorable and 
blessed Trinity. Our relationships with Him, therefore, 
are personal relationships. He is a real person, and just as 
we enter into various personal relationships here in the 
world, so is it with the Holy Spirit. He is a person, and 
His relationships with us are personal. 

Now I ask you to turn with me to the fourteenth chapter 
of John, sixteenth and seventeenth verses, which I will read : 

"I will pray the Father and He shall give you another 
Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. Even 
the Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot receive, because 
it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him, but ye know Him; 
for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." 

Just for the present I want you to hold in your minds 
those two little words, with and in. "He dwelleth with 
you." That was a present fact. "He shall be in you." 
A future promise. With and in. 

Now stop for a moment and ask what was the condition 
of these disciples of our Lord with reference to eternal life, 
regeneration, relationship to God? We know what it was. 
Answering for the others Peter had said, you know, in his 
great confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Liv- 
ing God." And our Lord, turning to Peter, said, "Blessed 
art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not re- 
vealed it unto thee, but my Father which is heaven." 

They had real, actual, personal faith in Jesus as the Son 
of God, and they were receiving Him as their Saviour, and 
therefore they were born again. The Holy Spirit was not 
yet in them, but He was with them, and they were, by the 
new birth, children of God. 

Turn now for a moment to the last chapter of Luke, the 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 2^^ 

49th verse, ''And behold I send the promise of my Father 
upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be 
endued with power from on high." 

And now you have the third of the little words which in- 
dicate the personal relationships of the Holy Spirit. They 
are, "with;' ''in;' and ''upon!' 

The Holy Spirit was "with" the disciples when our Lord 
was speaking to them in the upper chamber these wonderful 
words which we have recorded by John in the twelfth, thir- 
teenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth chapters. 

If you will turn with me to the twentieth chapter of 
John's gospel, nineteenth verse, you will see the fulfillment, 
for those disciples, of that promise, "He shall be in you." 

"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the 
week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were 
assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the 
midst and saith unto them. Peace be unto you. And when 
He had so said. He shewed unto them His hands and His 
side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. 
Then said Jesus to them again. Peace be unto you; as my 
Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He 
had said this He breathed on them, and saith unto them. 
Receive ye the Holy Ghost." 

I know very well there are brethren whom I honor and 
at whose feet as a learner I am, in most things, glad to sit, 
who teach concerning this act of our Lord's that it was sim- 
ply symbolical; that it pre-figured Pentecost; that nothing 
really was done. When He breathed on them and said, "Re- 
ceive ye the Holy Ghost," He did not impart to them the 
Holy Spirit and they did not receive the Holy Spirit to in- 
dwell them. I cannot believe it. I know of no Scripture 
which requires me to believe it. 

I venture in all tenderness to suggest that the difficulty 



278 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

in the minds of the brethren who so teach, which compels 
them to make a mere symbol of our Lord's words and action 
on the evening of His resurrection arise from their failure 
to distinguish between the **in" and "upon" relationships — 
between, that is to say, the Spirit as indwelling the believer 
and the Spirit as baptising the believer. 

The great passage, John vii : 37-39 : *'In the last day, 
that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. 
If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He 
that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of 
his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake 
He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should re- 
ceive : for the Holy Spirit was not yet ; because that Jesus 
was not yet glorified," refers exclusively to the "upon," or 
Pentecostal relationship. In John iv : 14 our Lord spoke of 
the indwelling Spirit as an upspringing fountain, "The wa- 
ter that I shall give him shall be in him, a fountain of water 
springing up into everlasting life" ; in John vii : 38 He spoke 
of the effect of the baptism with the Spirit as outflowing 
rivers. One is inner, and stands related to the believer's 
inner life, as we shall see later; the other has to do with 
his union to Christ in the one body, and to his outward life 
of service. "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy 
Spirit has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses," etc. 
(Acts i:8). 

The Bible is the most exquisitely accurate of books, be- 
cause it is verbally inspired, and neither in Greek nor in 
English do the words "in" and "upon" mean the same thing. 
One might with equal propriety contend that church and 
kingdom mean the same thing. 

Certainly the baptism with the Spirit could not be until 
the Head of the body should be in glory, for the first eflfect 
of the baptism with the Spirit was to unite the believers to 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES ^?9 

Christ in the body, the church, and Eph. i : 22 expressly 
teaches that our Lord was not given to be head over the 
body till He had been raised from the dead and seated in 
glory. The word used of our Lord in the impartation of 
the indwelling Spirit (John xx: 22) is very intense. Darby 
renders : "He breathed into them." 

It will be remembered, also, that the risen Lord had be- 
fore Him a forty-days' ministry to these very men (Acts 
i: 3), and surely it was of necessity that they should be able 
to spiritually discern the truth "pertaining to the kingdom 
of God." 

Now then we have these three simple ways in which the 
Holy Spirit stands related to the believer ; with the believer ; 
within the believer; upon the believer. And you observe 
that in the case of these personal disciples of our Lord we 
see these relationships assumed by the Holy Spirit with an 
interval between. That is, He was with them before He was 
within them, and He was within them before He was upon 
them. 

And so long as the Gospel was preached to Jews only — 
that is during the period of which Acts i : 9 gives the record 
— an interval of time elapsed between the act of faith and 
the receiving of the Spirit. For Israel the mediation of the 
Apostles was necessary, but, from the preaching of Peter 
in the house of the Gentile Cornelius to this hour, no inter- 
val intervenes between the moment when faith is exercised, 
and the receiving of the Spirit as indwelling and baptising 
the believer. It is wholly unscriptural to tell believers to 
"seek the baptism" with the Spirit. Not one such injunc- 
tion or exhortation can be found in the Apostolic writings. 
On the contrary, we are taught that "by one Spirit are we 
all baptised into one body." (i Cor. xii: 13.) 



28o THINGS NEW AND OLD 

Every believer on the Lord Jesus Christ has the Spirit 
with him, within him, and upon him. 

Now I am afraid that I shall not carry you all with me 
just at once when I make that last statement. We are so 
constantly exhorted, all over the country, and by eminent 
brethren, too, and brethren greatly beloved in the Lord, to 
seek the baptism with the Spirit (the "upon" relationship), 
that the notion has come to be very widespread that one of 
the first duties of the Christian is to seek the baptism of the 
Holy Spirit. The believer is, indeed, commanded to be 
filled with the Spirit (Eph. v: i8), which is quite another 
matter, as we shall see. 

The first thing with which faith has to deal is the fact 
that the Spirit does indwell the believer. I remember very 
well a dear old man in the South, a very sweet and lovely 
Christian, who was manifesting continually the fruit of the 
Spirit, and yet I never heard him pray that he did not ask 
the Father to give him the Spirit, and I finally said to him : 
"Brother, I have heard you pray many times to the Father 
to give you the Holy Spirit. When do you expect your 
prayer to be answered ? Why is it not answered ?" 

"Well," he said, "that is a great puzzle to me ; I can't un- 
derstand it. I have been praying for these years to the 
Father to give me the Spirit, and I have not had an answer." 

"Well," I said, "brother, you have been praying for some- 
thing you have already, and instead of praying the Father 
to give you the Spirit you should be thanking the Father 
that He has given you the Spirit." And so we went to the 
Word to see about that. 

And now let us, you and I, see whether the Scripture 
justifies my statement that if we are believers on the Lord 
Jesus Christ the Spirit does indwell our bodies. 

I take you, first of all, to i Corintliians, the sixth chapter 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 281 

and nineteenth verse : **What ! know ye not that your body is 
the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye 
have of God, and ye are not your own?" 

But you will say, perhaps, that this was addressed to 
believers of the Apostolic day, to a superlative kind of thor- 
oughly sanctified believers. No, indeed. The Apostle 
blames these Corinthian saints for everything that could be 
faulty in the life of a Christian. They are carnal, and walk 
as men ; they are running after human leaders, Paul, Apol- 
los, Cephas. They are going to law with one another before 
the world, and they are permitting a shocking condition of 
immorality in their assembly. And yet they were Christians. 
They were believers, but they were carnal believers, and 
to these the Apostle addressed this question : "What ! know 
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which 
is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not our own?" 

They were living on a very low level indeed, but they 
were real believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore 
the Spirit of God dwelt in their bodies, making them tem- 
ples. 

That is a tremendous and transforming fact — the Holy 
Spirit indwells us. He is not going away. He is there to 
stay. I say it is a transforming fact, but we must begin by 
believing it. If, upon the alone testimony of the wor'd of 
God, you will simply believe that the Spirit has already 
taken up His abode in your mortal bodies, you will find a 
transformation beginning, and very possibly some things 
that you now allow will no longer be allowed if that is really 
believed. 

We must take things from the Word of God first, and then 
when we believe them we have an answering experience. 
I turn again to the eighth of Romans, and ninth verse: 
"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that 



282 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not 
the Spirit of Christ's, he is none of His." 

The word rendered "have" here is over and over again 
rendered "possess." If any man possesses not the Spirit 
of Christ he is none of His. The words "Spirit of Christ" 
do not mean to be like-minded with Christ. It is the Holy 
Spirit who is spoken of here. Therefore, if we are believers 
at all, dear friends, I repeat it, we have the Spirit. 

But what a difference it makes when we come really to 
beHeve that within this wonderful temple of the body the 
mighty Spirit of God dwells, the Holy Spirit. Did you ever 
think why He is so constantly called holy? Surely He is 
no more holy than the Father or the Son. There is no pre- 
eminence of holiness in any one of the persons of the ador- 
able Trinity. I have thought that perhaps it is because He 
enters so intimately into relationships with us as indwelling 
us. Perhaps God would remind us that He who dwells 
within us is, first of all, holy. Well, now if we come to be- 
lieve that, dear friends, I repeat, there will come a change 
of life. I have seen it again and again. 

I remember when I was a young man I was one of a 
house party at a country house, the home of a young friend 
of ours; and we were having what we called a good time, 
playing cards, and dancing, and all worldly amusements 
of that kind, when at dinner one evening the butler handed 
our host a telegram. 

The face of our host, as he read the telegram, was a 
study. He appeared glad and he appeared confused, and 
presently he said, "My dear old mother will be here in an 
hour, on the next train, and all this dancing and card play- 
ing has got to stop. Why," he said, "I would not have her 
grieved by our doing any of these things in this house 
where she has lived for so many years for anything." And 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 283 

he told the butler to get every card in the house and bum 
it up. Presently she came; a dear, sweet-faced old saint, 
and we all fell in love with her at once, and as the evening 
drew to its close she told her son to bring the family Bible, 
and she said, "You read and I will pray." I noticed it took 
him a long time to find the place, but at last he did find it, 
and then she knelt down and prayed. Well, we remained 
there about a week after that, and the whole Hfe of that 
house from that moment was keyed to the fact that this 
Godly old saint had come among us. Everything took color 
from her presence. 

My friends, if we really believed that the Holy Spirit 
dwelt within these bodies of ours, how long do you think 
we could allow many things about which we are so careless 
to-day ? 

Here for the present we leave this most important sub- 
ject. The Holy Spirit has taken up His abode in our mor- 
tal bodies! That is quite enough for us to meditate upon 
now. Just as God turned the house which Solomon built 
into a temple by filling it with the shekinah glory, so that 
it became sacred for Jehovah's abode in the midst of Israel, 
so the Spirit's indwelling should make unholiness of thought 
or word a horror and a shame to us. 



THE WORK OF THE INDWELLING SPIRIT. 

We continue this evening the subject of the Holy Spirit. 
You will remember that we saw very clearly from the Word 
of God that if we are believers on the Lord Christ the 
Spirit of God dwells in our mortal bodies. It is a very 
beginning of days when a Christian really accepts that fact. 
When, instead of seeking the Spirit, we believe that He is 
already within. 



\ 



284 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

And you will remember that we had begun to look to- 
gether at the purposes of His indwelling — the work He seeks 
to do, and that we found as a primary result of His indwell- 
ing that the body becames a temple. We speak sometimes 
of meeting houses as sacred places because they have been 
set apart for holy uses, but, ah, how infinitely more holy 
and sacred is this wonderful temple of the body by reason 
of the fact that the Holy Spirit dwells in it. You know that 
when Solomon's temple was built it was given over to God. 
The ark was brought into the most holy place, and then 
the priests went out, and the glory of the Lord filled the 
house, and from that moment it was a temple. It was a 
temple in intent and purpose all the while Solomon was 
building it, but when God by the Shekinah glory took pos- 
session of it, then it became God's temple. 

Well that is just true of us, dear friends, of these bodies 
of ours only in a far more wonderful sense, for God Him- 
self dwells in these temples by His Spirit. It is a serious 
fact. 

And next I ask you to note that the Spirt indwells the be- 
liever to give victory over the flesh, and oh, dear friends, 
how important that is. The old self life is there; the old 
Adam nature is there. In a very real sense the believer on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, who has been born of the Spirit and 
made a partaker of the divine nature, is two persons. More 
accurately he has within his one personality two natures. 
The divine nature imparted by the Spirit of God in the new 
birth and the old Adam nature. You will remember how, 
in an experimental way, this is brought out by the seventh 
chapter of Romans. There you have a renewed man, a 
believer on the Lord Jesus Christ ; a justified believer, and 
knowing himself to be such, but he is destitute of either rest 
or victory. He is in constant inner strife, and his experi- 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 285 

ence is one of constant defeat. It is one of the saddest and 
most tragic passages of the Word of God, and yet one is con- 
strained to beUeve that it describes an average Christian 
experience. But the seventh of Romans is immediately fol- 
lowed by the eighth, and there the same man gives us quite 
a different aspect of Christian life and Christian experience. 
Indeed, the great apostle to the Gentiles illustrates in him- 
self the only three possible phases of religious and Christian 
experience. First, as a Jew, he was a very religious man, 
intensely religious, working day and night at his religion: 
far more zealous in the religion of his fathers than many of 
his equals in his own nation, profiting more in it than they, — 
intensely religious, perfectly self-satisfied — but lost. 

And then he met Jesus on the way to Damascus and was 
saved, and then he was miserable, for, as we discover by the 
seventh of Romans, he was trying to go on as a Christian 
under the law, and that is always misery, and always defeat. 

And then Paul passed into a third phase of experience, of 
which Romans . viii : 2 is the expression: "The law of the 
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
law of sin and death." The conflict of the seventh of Ro- 
mans had passed into victory — not by the method of law- 
works and self-determination, but by the power of the Spirit 
indwelling him. 

Now, I believe that the professing church illustrates con- 
tinually these three phases of experience. Hosts are in 
Paul's first state; religious churchgoers, church members. 
They are very diligent in the outward things of religion, 
and they are quite contented with themselves, but when you 
speak of inward struggles or any vital Christian experience, 
they wonder what you are talking about. 

I was preaching once on Romans vii : 18, where the 
apostle, going back in his experience, tells of the time when 



286 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

to will was present with him, but how to perform that which 
was good he found not. 

One of my hearers came to me when the sermon was 
ended and said, "I cannot understand what was the matter 
with Paul. Why, it seems the easiest thing in the world to 
be good. I don't have any difficulty about being good." I 
asked my friend — a very faithful church member — what he 
thought the apostle Paul meant by being good. "Why," 
said he, "to be honest, pay your debts, be kind to your 
family, abstain from worldly amusements, stay away from 
theatres, and let cards alone, and that kind of thing." Said 
he, "I don't find any difficulty in that." 

"Now," I answered, "let me give you my idea of what 
Paul meant," and I turned to some of the exhortations of 
the epistles concerning the Christian walk. I turned back to 
the beatitudes, "Blessed are the meek." I said, "Did you 
ever try to be meek?" Well, he could not say that he ever 
had. Didn't know that he admired meekness especially. 

"Well," said I, "that is just it. You try to be meek once, 
and you will soon come upon Paul's difficulty. You can 
act meekly, of course, for awhile, until somebody angers 
you, or something arouses your pride. What the Apostle 
Paul agonized for was to be the beatitudes, and he could 
not accomplish it, though he was saved, a justified man. 

Then, other multitudes, like Paul in the seventh of Ro- 
mans, are saved but without victory over the self-life, striv- 
ing to please God by law-works, and to get peace of con- 
science by religiousness. They are like Israel in the wilder- 
ness, restless, murmuring, often lusting after the things of 
Egypt, and, finally, a few, knowing the blessed purpose and 
power of the indwelling Spirit, quietly reckon upon Him 
for victory. 

Some one said, "I hear a great deal of talk about the 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 287 

Pope of Rome, but the pope who troubles me most is Pope 
Myself." Oh, dear friends, that is it, the real enemy is in 
us. When conscience, under the searchlight of Scripture, 
accuses us of failure, we straightway blame Satan. But 
read Mark vii 120-23, and remember that all that is latent 
within. 

I beg you to note the apostle's secret of victory. He opens 
the secret to us at once: "The law of the Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 
death." The law of sin which is in his members, the law 
of death written and engraved in stones. The man is de- 
livered. He is made free. By what ? By new resolutions ? 
By more prayer ? By getting up earlier in the morning, and 
keeping the morning watch? Oh, he had gone through all 
that kind of thing when he was a Jew. What he wants is 
reality now, and he has got reality. Now a new law, a new 
power, a new enablement has come in and delivered the man ; 
that is what he is telling us. And then he was working 
so hard in the seventh of Romans to perfect a character 
which God could approve, and now he finds the wonderful 
truth — the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in (not by) 
those who walk not after the law but after the Spirit ; and 
so it goes on, one continuous shout of victory from the be- 
ginning to the end of the chapter, all based on the perfect 
work of Christ, but made into actual experience by the Holy 
Spirit dwelling in the believer. 

Turn upon that point to one other passage, the fifth of 
Galatians, sixteenth and seventeenth verses: "This I say, 
then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of 
the flesh." Why? "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, 
and the Spirit against the flesh." The omnipotent Spirit of 
God dwelling in the believer and the flesh in the believer are 
contrary the one to the other, but the Spirit has power, as 



288 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

we walk in Him, perfectly to keep in the place of death the 
deeds of the body, the flesh and its motions. So that we 
are utterly without excuse if we are saying: ''Well, I was 
angry this morning, but I am naturally high-tempered, but 
it is just a flash, and it is all over; I am not one of those 
who hold malice." Oh, yes, it is just a flash, as you turn 
on your doorstep to go to work in the morning, and your 
wife suffers over it all day long, and you let yourself off 
by pleading your nature. God help you ! 

Observe, it is not you and the Holy Spirit. It is the 
Holy Spirit. He does not ask any of your help in that. He 
asks only one thing, that you shall walk in Him. Now what 
is it to walk in the Spirit ? Why, it is to walk in yieldedness 
to the Spirit. 

You read that Jesus returned in the Spirit unto Galilee. 
He had, so far as we know, nothing to do that day but take 
a walk; but He was "in the Spirit" — a Spirit-guided Man 
that day. All His whole nature and being were consciously 
yielded up to the control of the Spirit. That is walking in 
the Spirit. Now here is an imperative promise: "Walk 
in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." 
It is one of the divine imperatives. Ye shall not. God 
means that. And then He explains why ye shall not : "For 
the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against 
the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that 
ye may not do the things that ye would." 

Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful office! What a won- 
derful privilege! The strife goes on, but it is the Spirit 
against the flesh. Omnipotence against the old Adam na- 
ture, and you, the new man, are out of the conflict, and in 
peace, and you are asked to do but one thing — walk in 
yieldedness to Him. What a privilege ! What a marvelous 
privilege I 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 289 

I would say again, that the Spirit of God dwells in the 
believer to produce that thing that we hear so much — if 
you will allow me to so put it — twaddle about — Christian 
character. It is the great talk of the modern preachers — 
character, character, character. One gets tired of the word. 
One feels some sense of relief that the word is not in the 
Bible. We are to be saved by character, we are to make 
character, and to build character. 

I suppose the idea is that we are to practice sedulously some 
grace of the Christian life until it has become a kind of 
habit, and then we take up another, and build up, at last, 
a complete character. That is the seventh of Romans again. 

What of Christian character? How does it come? Let 
me read (Galatians v .'22,23 ). 

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness" (ah, it is possible 
then to be meek!), "temperance. Against such there is no 
law." 

There are the nine beautiful elements of real Christian 
character, and how are they produced? "The fruit of the 
Spirit." It carries one back in thought to our Lord's vital 
presentation, that intensely vital presentation of the great 
truth of our oneness with Him. "I am the vine, ye are 
the branches." "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the 
same bringeth forth much fruit." How does the branch 
bear fruit? It has no roots of its own, but because it is in 
the vine the life energies of the vine fill the branch and it 
grows, and blossoms, and at last there come the rich clus- 
ters of grapes, and the energy of the vine in the branch 
has produced that. The branch has not been worried over 
the fruit bearing. The branch has done nothing in the 
world but just abide in the vine. That is all. 

These are the fruits ; these are the graces which are not 
19 



290 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

possible to be produced by any manner of self-effort. By 
no manner of effort can you make yourself loving, by no 
manner of effort can you ever have peace; no mere will 
power will ever make you longsuffering. Nothing will give 
you gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, but 
the Spirit of God. 

The Spirit of God by His own power and energy pro- 
duces these things in the believer who walks in the Spirit, 
and the believer who walks in the Spirit rests on the divine 
imperative that he shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. 

Then the Spirit gives discernment of truth. I will read 
you just one passage, i Corinthians, second chapter: 
"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can 
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned," and 
therefore I do not care how learned in the learning of man- 
kind any theologian or critic may be, if he without renewal 
and without spirituality is examining the word of God I 
will just ask him to please let me pass on and not take my 
time, because it is impossible for him to help me, and his 
authority as a critic, a scholar, I thank God, does not awe 
me. I would just as soon think of reading a long book 
about the color of a rose, written by a blind man who 
had never seen a rose, as I would a long criticism upon 
the Bible by a mere professional professor in some theo- 
logical school; but now observe, "He that is spiritual dis- 
cerneth all things." 

Oh, that is it. It is by the Spirit that the truth of God 
is made actual to us, and ceases to be to us a dead word, 
and becomes to us the living word, which it surely is, the 
Spirit Himself marvelously interpreting it. 

Now I beg you to note most carefully that another classi- 
fication comes in here: "And I, brethren, could n.Qt speak 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 291 

unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto 
babes in Christ" ( i Cor. iii : i ) . 

And they were Christians, and the Spirit was dwelling 
in them! But, dear friends, the Spirit indwelling is not a 
mechanical thing. Do not imagine that because you can take 
by faith unhesitatingly the fact that the Spirit does dwell 
in you that therefore you are of necessity spiritual. You 
may be very carnal. You may be grieving the Spirit and 
quenching the Spirit every conscious moment of your lives ! 
It is the fact that you are yielding to the Spirit, walking in 
the Spirit, the Spirit having His sovereign way within, that 
makes the believer spiritual. Then, one may have a great 
deal of knowledge, and only be puffed up by it, and one may 
have very little knowledge, and yet be very spiritual, and, in 
the sphere of his capacity, very helpful in the things of God. 
For it is too often true that "knowledge puffeth up, love 
buildeth up." 

Then, finally, — and with this I shall release you — that it 
is the Spirit who renews and nourishes the spiritual life. 

Look at our Lord's beautiful figure in the fourth chapter 
of John's Gospel, "Whosoever shall drink of the water that 
I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I 
shall give him shall be in him a fountain (not a well; the 
contrast is between Jacob's well and a fountain of water 
springing up) springing up into everlasting life." 

But what a picture of renewal, what a picture of vitality ; 
what a figure of vigor and freshness in the inner life. I 
believe that the great trouble with Christian people to-day 
is what might be called "low vitality." They have life, but 
they have not the life more abundantly. 

I remember going once with a friend to speak a little to 
some poor weak ones who were in a convalescent home near 
London. And this friend said, "Won't you go out there 



292 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

and speak to those poor ones? They are very weak, and 
you must give them milk. They cannot concentrate their 
minds very well, but do come and just give them a little 
simple word ; it may be a blessing to them." 

I was never in a place where my heart was more touched, 
and yet, remember, all those people there had been dis- 
charged by the doctor. They were all pronounced cured, 
or they could not be there, but there was something so 
pathetic in the weakness and irritability and lack of power 
of those poor people. 

Why, as I look at the present day church statistics, it 
seems to me that many of them are little more than con- 
valescent retreats. They have life, perhaps. They have 
had the touch of the Great Physician, but how ineffective 
they are. How unable they are to go on with anything in 
the work of the Lord. How little they apprehend even 
the possibilities that lie latent in Christian life. What do 
they need? They need to be drinking at the fountain. 
They need to be filled. What a picture of renewal that is. 
If a fountain is to be upspringing it must continually be 
fed from a source higher than itself, and the inlet must be 
kept open, and the outlet must be kept open, and then the 
fountain sends forth its crystal waters, and in its way sings 
a song of praise to God. 

The water is there, but the difficulty is that the inlet and 
the outlet are both very much obstructed. We are obstruct- 
ing the inlet when we grieve the Spirit of God, and we 
certainly obstruct the outlet when we quench the Spirit of 
God. 

But there He is with all these possibilities of glorious 
and abundant life within. It is not power for service that 
I am speaking of now. That you get in the seventh chapter 
of John, the outflowing rivers of living water. It is the 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 293 

inner life which is before the mind of the Lord Jesus here 
when He speaks of the upspringing fountain of living water ; 
or in Paul's phrase, "strengthened with might by His Spirit 
in the inner man." 

Oh, there is the great arena where all spiritual victories 
must be gained. We hear so much to-day about power for 
service, and we are told to be "seeking" power for service. 

Why, read the fourteen Epistles of Paul, and note that 
he never tells the believer to seek power for service — a 
strange omission, if these brethren are right. Not one single 
exhortation or command to seek the baptism of the Spirit 
or to seek power in all these Epistles. The power is wait- 
ing for us, but what we have here is not power; it is the 
inner life, — strengthened with might by His spirit in the 
inner man. 

Now let us think of it, dear friends, just a little personally. 
The Spirt of God, with all these precious possibilities, 
latent in the fact, dwells in you and me. We tnay walk in 
victory — are we walking in victory? We may be faithful 
— are we faithful ? 

Have you noticed — and this is the last word — that in 
that parable of the vine and the branches there are three 
degrees of fruit-bearing? "Fruit," "more fruit," "much 
fruit," and never until we reach much fruit do we glorify 
the Father. "Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear 
much fruit." Oh, the religious world can imitate a poor 
little sort of fruit-bearing. Anyone can do the convenient 
things. There are a great many nice people in the world, 
but they cannot be holy. It is impossible. The world can- 
not be spiritual, but we may, and we may produce those 
lovely graces which are the fruit of the Spirit, refreshing to 
ourselves and a testimony unanswerable to all who know us. 



294 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

BARABBAS THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
By C. I. Scofield. 

Barabbas was condemned to die. No one has ever ques- 
tioned the justice of his sentence. He was a rebel against 
the law, a robber and a murderer. And now the outraged 
law had laid strong hands on him, and he lay bound, under 
sentence of death. He was not under probation, but under 
doom. He was not awaiting trial, but execution. Just be- 
fore him, as his only prospect, was the awful death of 
crucifixion. He knew what that meant : long hours of un- 
speakable agony, the hands and feet torn by great spikes, 
the wrist and shoulder joints dislocated by the dragging 
down of the body, each quivering nerve a separate torture 
through tension, a burning, unquenchable thirst, and, all 
around, a jeering, taunting mob. All the horizon of his 
life is narrowed to that. The only question is, wheyi? 

Even this begins to be answered. The jailers prepare 
three crosses. Ah! he well knows the three sockets cut in 
the hard rock out there in the Place of the Skull. Is one 
of these crosses for him? The very thought gives him a 
sense of suffocation, and of something clutching at his 
heart. Then he is told : yes, he is to suffer in the morning. 
Two malefactors are to die with him, but he, as the greater 
criminal, is to have the place of eminence, is to have the 
middle cross. 

Then the night falls. But it is a disturbed night. Even 
in the prison it is perceived that something unusual is oc- 
curring. Confused noises, outcries, the tramping of feet, 
penetrate the thick walls. Barabbas dumbly wonders what 
it all means. Perhaps it is another insurrection such as 
that he, poor fool, raised against the majestic, inflexible 
Law. But the night wears on, and at last it is daylight — 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES ^95 

the light of his last day ! And now he hears footsteps, the 
key grinds in the lock, his prison door swings open, but, 
just as he is summoning all his brute's fortitude for the 
ordeal which awaits him, he hears the joyful words: "Go 
free! Go free! Barabbas; another takes your place; an- 
other is to die between the two malefactors." 

As Barabbas emerged into the free, glorious sunshine, 
the crowd was already surging out toward the Place of the 
Skull. And then, if not before, the desire must have arisen 
to know who had been condemned to die in his place. One 
can easily imagine how Barabbas followed the throng, striv- 
ing eagerly to see the Man who was to die for him. Per- 
haps it was not until the sound of the hammer driving the 
nails had ceased, and the cross — Barabbas' cross — had been 
upreared, bearing its awful burden, that Barabbas saw the 
Sufferer. We may well believe that, moved by a strange, 
irresistible drawing (John xii:32), Barabbas pressed his 
way through the howling mob until he stood looking up 
into the face of Jesus. 

Barabbas knew Him, of course. His substitute in agony 
there was the new Teacher out of Galilee, the Man who 
spake as never man spake, the Man whose life had been 
absolutely without sin. Adam sinned, and Abraham and 
Moses, and all the prophets, but not this Man. And, be- 
sides. He healed even leprosy by a touch or a word. One 
day when the crowd got hungry he manufactured enough 
food for five thousand men, not to mention women and 
children, out of five loaves and a few small fishes. Because 
of these, and like things, Barabbas perhaps really was con- 
vinced that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. But he 
had not become His disciple because he loved sin. 

However that may have been, it is easy to see that Barab- 



296 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

bas had no need to be a theologian to form a good working 
theory of the atonement. 

first, He knew that he was a guilty wretch, under the 
righteous condemnation of the law (Luke xxiii:25). And 
in both these respects Barabbas was a representative of all 
men (Rom. iii : 10-20, 23 ; Gal. iii : 10) . 

Secondly, Barabbas knew that the Sufferer before him 
had done no sin (John viii : 46 ; John xix : 4 ; i Peter ii : 22) . 

Thirdly, He knew that Jesus was, for him, a true substi- 
tute. He was verily and actually dying in his place and 
stead ; an innocent and holy being bearing the very penalty 
which the law had justly decreed to him, Barabbas. Who- 
ever, in the coming ages, might question whether Christ's 
death was vicarious and substitutional, he could never ques- 
tion it (2 Cor. V : 21 ; Gal. iii : 13 ; i Peter ii : 22-24 ; iii • 18 ; 
Isa. liii: 5, 6). 

Fourthly, He knew that he had done nothing whatever to 
merit the marvelous interposition of that substitutional 
death. Whatever may have been back of it, it reached him 
as an act of pure grace (Ps. Ixixiig, 20; Eph. ii:4-9; 2 
Tim. i 19; Tit. ii:ii; Rom. iv:4, 5). 

Fifthly, He knew that Christ's death for him was perfectly 
efficacious. There was, therefore, nothing for him to add 
to it. Just because Christ was dying, he was living. The 
only question before Pilate was whether Christ should die 
or Barabbas. When it was decided that Christ should die, 
Barabbas was set free. His assurance was complete the 
instant that his Substitute said, "It is finished," and gave 
up the ghost (John xix: 30; Eph. i:y; Col. i: 14; Rom. 
v:99; i John i 17; Col. i: 20; Heb. x: 10, 14). 

John McNeill, the great Scotch preacher, well says : 

'*My brethren, let me commend to you Barabbas' theory 
of the atonement. It is a good theory to preach on, pray on, 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 297 

sing on, die on. Do you know any other theory that will 
stand these tests?" 



MAY THE LORD COME AT ANY TIME? 
C. I. Scofield. 

No one denies that the Scriptures teach a second coming 
of Christ at some time ; and the church, even in her worst 
estate, has never ceased to bear testimony by her creeds, 
at least to the same truth. 

But upon the two questions of the manner and of the 
time of His return wide divergencies of teaching have lately 
arisen. Into the question of the manner of our Lord's 
second coming it is not my purpose to enter, but only to 
seek light from Scripture concerning the question of the 
time of that coming. And even here I shall consider only 
that aspect of His coming revealed through the Apostle 
Paul. 

Attentive students of the Word are aware of that, to the 
Apostles to the Gentiles was committed a body of revela- 
tion concerning the church; that the Old Testament knows 
nothing of the church (though allowance is made for it) ; 
and that our Lord did no more than to announce His 
purpose to build it. Apart from the writings of the Spirit 
by Paul, we should know practically nothing of the mystery 
of the "church which is His body, the fullness of Him that 
filleth all in all." 

But through these writings we are blessed with a full 
and clear revelation concerning the church, her origin, 
method, relationships, calling and destniy. Obviously, any 
inspired account of the church which should omit to tell 
what the end should be of her earthly pilgrimage, would be 



298 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

in so far defective. We have, therefore, in two notable 
passages in the Epistles, written through Paul, a succinct 
but satisfying prophecy of that ending. 

"For, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be 
made alive. But every man in his own order — Christ the 
first fruits ; afterward they that are Christ's, at His coming 
.... Behold I show you a mystery ! We shall not 
all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet 
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
we shall be changed" (i Cor. xv:22, 23, 51, 52). "But 
I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning 
them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others 
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died 
and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will 
God bring with Him. For this we say unto you, by the 
word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain 
unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent (go before) 
them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend 
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, 
and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall 
rise first: then we, which are alive and remain, shall be 
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the 
Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" 
(i Thess. iv: 13-17). 

It is this event, and this only, which is before us in this 
article. That there is a vast body of prophecy which has 
to do with the return of Christ to the earth, in connection 
with the setting up of the Messianic kingdom, the resump- 
tion of the divine dealings with Israel, and the blessing of 
the whole world, we are well aware. But the coming, of 
which the quoted passages speak, is not to the earth, but into 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES m 

"the air"; it does not establish anything on the earth, but 
takes a people away from the earth. 

The descent of the Lord into the air for the church, is 
not, therefore, that aspect of the second coming of which 
the Old Testament prophets speak (e. g., Zech. xiv: 1-9), 
nor that aspect of His coming of which our Lord spoke in 
the Olivet discourse, and in His eschatalogical parables. 
It is part of what Paul calls "my gospel" — part of the truth 
concerning the church. 

I now ask : May the coming of the Lord into the air for 
the church occur at any time? I answer, yes: and for 
two reasons. 

L There is no predicted event which must he fulfilled 
before that coming. 

It is sometimes said that our Lord indicated an interven- 
ing condition when He said (Matt. xxiv:i4), "And this 
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for 
a witness unto all nations : and then shall the end come" ; 
and it is objected this has not yet been accomplished. 

To which I answer (i) that "the end" of which our Lord 
speaks is not His descent into the air for His church, but 
the "end of the age," concerning which the disciples had 
questioned Him (verse 3). (2) That the church is not set 
to preach the "gospel of the kingdom," but "the gospel of 
the grace of God" ; and (3), that there is to be a world-wide 
preaching of the kingdom by the Jewish remnant during 
the tribulation. (Rev. viiQ-ii; vii:i3, 14 R. V.; Zech. 
viii: 23, etc.) 

Again, it is said that the Lord does not return until after 
the millennium. As to this objection, it is sufficient to say 
that the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, of the Noble- 
man and the Far Country, and the descriptions of the course 
of this age, alike forbid the possibility of a millennium be- 



300 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

fore the return of the Lord in glory to the earth. (Matt, 
xiii: 24-30, 36-43; Luke xix:ii-i4; Matt, xxiv 16-14; 2 
Thess. ii:7, 8.) 

And, since the descent of the Lord into the air must pre- 
cede His return in glory to the earth, it is evident that no 
millennium can possibly occur before the latter event. 

Others aver that the great tribulation must run its course 
before the church can be caught up. To this I answer: 
(i) there is an express promise that the true church shall 
be kept "from the hour of temptation which shall come 
upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." 
(Rev. iii:io.) (2) That the church, priestly and royal, 
is seen in the persons of the elders in heaven before the 
events which constitute the great tribulation begin to occur 
on the earth. These elders are seen in Rev. iv, and before 
the first, or seal, series of judgments begin — and these but 
prepare — the tribulation. (3) That all the types bear out 
this view. Sodom could not be destroyed till Lot was taken 
out of it, etc. 

n. In the Epistles of Paul, who alone tells us of the 
rapture of the church, the characteristic attitude of the 
believer is "waiting'* — not for the millennium, nor for the 
great tribulation, but for "His Son from heaven, whom He 
raised from the dead, Jesus" ; and, "looking for that blessed 
hope." 

We, therefore, answer the question: "May the Lord 
come at any time ?" affirmatively — He may. 

And surely when we look about us we are constrained 
to echo the last prayer of Scripture : "Even so, come. Lord 
Jesus." 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 301 

THE WALK OF FAITH. 
C. I. Scofield. 

Every great truth of the Gospel has some special passage 
of Scripture devoted to its definition and elucidation. The 
thirteenth of i Corinthians is the love chapter ; the fifteenth 
of I Corinthians the resurrection chapter; the fourteenth 
of Romans the justification chapter ; the fourth of i Thessa- 
lonians the hope chapter, the eleventh of Hebrews is the 
faith chapter. Faith, hope, love, and justification, and 
resurrection are everywhere mentioned or implied, but in 
the chapters specified the Holy Spirit makes those words 
central. We are to look together this afternoon at the great 
faith chapter. 

For one I am glad that faith is here taken up experi- 
mentally rather than doctrinally. Let me illustrate for a 
moment. Romans iii-iv is a great doctrinal passage; Ro- 
mans vii, a great experimental passage. The Apostle in the 
latter does not give an essay on the believer's two natures. 
He does something far more vivid and intense : he tells us 
his own experience of the strife between the new man and 
the old man in terms of pain and even of agony. 

So here we have not a disquisition on faith, after the 
manner of the theologians, but we have a succession of pic- 
tures showing what faith has done, and how it works as a 
dominant principle in the life that now is. Abel and Enoch 
and Noah and Abraham and the other pattern men of faith 
pass before us as living illustrations of the faith principles. 

It is not difficult to penetrate the writer's motive. He 
was writing to Hebrews who had at least professed faith in 
Christ, but who were in danger of lapsing back into Judaistic 
views of the importance of works. The writer meets that 
tendency indirectly but powerfully by showing them all the 



302 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

great men of the Bible had been great not through works, 
but through faith — that faith was no new principle in the 
Gospel, but an old principle to which, in the Gospel, a uni- 
versal application was given. 

Let us then take up our chapter and learn from it how 
faith works in human lives. 

First of all, then, note carefully that verse I is not a defi- 
nition of faith, but a most precious as to the sphere in which 
faith works, and as to what it accomplishes in that sphere: 
"Now, faith is the giving substance to things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen." 

Evidently that statement, as I have pointed out, does not 
define faith. A phrase in i John v:i4 gives the best defi- 
nition of faith of which I have any knowledge : "and this is 
the confidence that we have in Him." Faith is confidence in 
God, and hence in God's word. 

We cannot be too simple here. Faith may have secondary 
effects which react upon our feelings, but faith is not believ- 
ing something because we "feel" that it is true, but because 
God says it is true. Let me be understood : I do not question, 
but rather affirm, that concerning matters of guidance in 
the daily path there is often a voice in the soul, but it is 
the Bible which points out the path, and the principles which 
must govern the life in that path. Abraham's faith is called 
"strong" in Romans iv:20, but what, after all, was that 
strong faith ? He was "fully persuaded that what God had 
promised He was able also to perform." Faith demands a 
promise, a revelation, but bases upon that promise a "confi- 
dence in Him" which instantly makes the promised thing 
real. 

When, as a child, my earthly father promised me any- 
thing, so sure was I of my father's integrity, of his loyalty to 
his word, that the thing promised had "substance." 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 303 

Note now the sphere within which faith lives and moves 
and has its being: "things hoped for"; "things not seen." 
The contrast is between things "seen" and things "unseen." 
And this, let me remind you very exactly defines the re- 
spective spheres of science and of faith. Science has to 
do with things seen. Within that sphere science has wrought 
marvels, and deserves all honor. But in the sphere of the 
unseen, in the arcanum of things at present invisible, science 
has no place and covers herself with folly when she intrudes 
there. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have en- 
tered into the heart of man, the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love him" ( i Cor. ii : 9) . 

It is in this sphere that faith walks erect, triumphant and 
with assured step. See how true this is. 

The first use of faith, logically, is to get a sinner right 
with God, and that is the order here. "By faith Abel offered 
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he 
obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his 
gifts" (Heb. xi : 4) . Here, as you know, were the only two 
possible forms of religion. Cain brought an offering which 
stood for the union of his toil and God's providence, but it 
expressed neither the guilt of sin nor the divine condemna- 
tion of that guilt. And all modern perversions of Christian- 
ity have that fatal defect; they are unbloody. They may 
talk beautifully about the character of Christ, and poetically 
about His death, but they have no answer of suffering under 
the divine justice to the guilt of sin. 

And Abel had nothing but his "gifts." It was of the slain 
firstling of the flock that God testified, not of Abel's char- 
acter, when He declared him "righteous." The first use of 
faith, then, is that by it sinful man brings to holy God the 
offering which the justice of God demands, and which His 



304 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

mercy has provided — "the Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world." 

And the very moment that is done, death, even physical 
death, is no longer a necessity. Enoch, who also had the 
testimony that he pleased God, was translated that he should 
not see death. 'We shall not all sleep." The Lord may 
come at any moment, and if he does, not one of us will die. 
(i Thess. iv: 14-16; i Cor. xv: 51, 52.) 

Let us remember, too, that Enoch found faith a glorious 
thing to live by, as well. He "walked with God three hun- 
dred years," and only faith can walk with the Invisible. 

The next instance, that of Noah, shows how faith con- 
cerning "things not seen as yet" instantly influences conduct. 
Mark the seven wonderful things in the old patriarch's 
faith. 

1. The ground of his faith: "warned of God." 

2. The sphere of his faith : "things not seen as yet." 

3. The effect of his faith : "fear," that prudence which 
becomes sinful man with divine warning. 

4. The activity of his faith : "he prepared an ark." 

5. The result of his faith : "saved his house." 

6. The testimony of his faith : "he condemned the world." 

7. The reward of his faith : "righteousness." 

There is a song, " 'Tis old time religion," and the refrain, 
" 'Tis good enough for me." Well, friends, there is old 
time salvation, which is better than religion, and I heartily 
add, " 'Tis good enough for me." 

Faith, again, is the only principle upon which practical 
separation can be maintained. "By faith Abraham when he 
was called to go out into a place which he should after re- 
ceive for an inheritance, obeyed ; and he went out not know- 
ing whither he should go." That call came to him in Ur of 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 305 

the Chaldees, and it demanded separation from all that mere 
nature holds most dear, but by faith he "obeyed." 

In Abraham, as you know, is illustrated the twofold sepa- 
ration demanded of the obedient beHever. In leaving Ur he 
illustrated separation from the world; in leaving Lot he 
illustrated that harder, more difficult separation from carnal 
believers. Lot was a justified man (2 Pet. ii : 7) but he was 
sadly a vessel unto dishonor (2 Tim. ii : 19-21). 

It is faith, again, which gives character to the walk. "By 
faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange 
country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs 
with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city 
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" 
(Heb. xi:9, 10). How loose he sat to things seen! Even 
to the very things which were his by promise. There was 
promised Abraham a twofold seed : "I will make thy seed 
as the dust of the earth" (Gen. xiii: 16) ; and, "Look now 
toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number 
them: and he said unto him. So shall thy seed be." In- 
stantly, Abraham's faith laid hold on the star-seed, the 
heavenly promise, and thenceforth a tent was good enough 
for the man who was looking for a city. Faith made that 
city more real to Abraham than the very mountains of 
Israel. 

Mark once more that faith is the channel through which 
divine power enters human life. It was "through faith" that 
Sara received "strength to conceive seed." Oh, how neces- 
sary to-day is that faith which can "receive strength" ! 

Faith, once more, undertakes great things for God. 
"What should I more say? for the time would fail me to 
tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jeph- 
thah and of David also, and of Samuel, and of the prophets ; 
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous- 
20 



3o6 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, 
out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, 
turned to fight the armies of the aliens." 

And here I challenge the hosts of doubt and of unbelief. 
What great thing for God or man was ever yet wrought by 
the atheist and the agnostic? Come, this is an old world; 
unbelief has had its innings for weary centuries — where is 
the record of its victories ? 

And, lastly, it is faith which sustains in trial. "Others 
were tortured not accepting deliverance." "And others had 
trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of 
bonds and imprisonment : they were stoned, they were sawn 
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they 
wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being desti- 
tute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not 
worthy." 

History, friends, bears no such record of every conceiv- 
able form of heroism as that which the heroes of faith have 
manifested. The soldier does his great exploits in the sight 
of thousands; at the most a soldier's death awaits him. 
Read the acta sanctorum, if you would know to what sub- 
limities of heroism faith can inspire, under what extremity 
of suffering faith can sustain. 

And yet, great as faith is in what, instrumentally, it effects, 
the blessed Object of faith, our adorable Lord is infinitely 
greater. There should be no chapter division at verse 40; 
for the Spirit could never leave us looking at mere faith. 
"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so 
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and 
the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with 
patience the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus." 

After all, who gives faith its potency ? — Jesus, "the author 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 307 

of our faith" ; and who insures the continuance of faith ? — 
Jesus, the "finisher of our faith." "Author and finisher!" 
Well, then, let us draw our faith from Him, not looking at 
our faith, but ever and only "unto Jesus." 

NOTES ON COLOSSIANS. 

About one hundred miles east of Ephesus, in the pen- 
insula called Asia Minor, the "Asia" of the Acts and 
Epistles, were situated the three towns mentioned in this 
Epistle — Colosse (i: i), Laodicea (iv :i3, 16), and Hiera- 
polis (iv: 13). In these places in the year 64 churches of 
Christ had been established. This region lay outside the 
sphere of Paul's missionary labors in Asia, and these 
churches doubtless represent the effect of that secondary 
wave of missionary effort proceeding from Ephesus during 
Paul's residence there in A. D. 58 and 59, of which mention 
is made Acts xix : 10. 

Colosse has long since perished, and the place is remem- 
bered among men only because of what God wrought in 
behalf of the little group of believers gathered there. 

The occasion of the Epistle is readily gathered from its 
contents, from the Epistle to the Saints in Ephesus, and 
that to Philemon. 

Paul was now (A. D. 64), a prisoner at Rome. Among 
those with whom he came into contact and who were bom 
again through his gospel labors, was a runaway slave from 
Colosse named, oddly enough, Onesimus (i, e. "profitable"). 
Onesimus was the slave of a prominent Christian, Phile- 
mon of Colosse. It was a first demand of righteousness 
that Onesimus should return to his master, and in his 
behalf Paul wrote the letter to Philemon, "which belongs, 



3o8 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

even as regards its Attic refinement and gracefulness, to the 
epistolary masterpieces of antiquity." — Meyer. 

But other matters were stirring Paul to his depths. His 
fellow-prisoner, Epaphras had been "a faithful minister of 
Christ" to the church at Colosse, and he had communicated 
to the Apostle his own deep concern for the saints at Colosse 
and Laodicea respecting certain errors of doctrine which 
had found entrance there. 

The state of the church as to fundamentals was still ex- 
cellent, but subtle errors absolutely subversive of true Chris- 
tianity were leavening the good meal. What that leaven 
was we gather from Paul's refutation. 

Briefly, it was legality mingled with a false philosophic 
mysticism. ''Beware," says the Apostle, "lest any man 
spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit" — that is one 
part of the danger. "After the tradition of men, after the 
rudiments of the world" — the other part of the danger. 

"Rudiments of the world" is Paul's phrase for the law, 
and for all mere formalism and externalism in religion. But 
this was not Judaic legality, emanating from Jerusalem, as 
in Galatia, but a mystical legality emanating probably from 
Alexandria. The former consisted in letter-bondage to the 
law — that is to written precept ; the philosophic legality con- 
sisted in being "wise above what was written" a strictness 
beyond letter of Scripture — in a word, asceticism : "Touch 
not, taste not," etc., and severities inflicted on the body. 

The philosophy was that which came later to be called 
Gnosticism (Greek gnosis — "knowledge"). The core of the 
Gnostic heresy was its doctrine of Christ, " to whom 
they did not leave His full divine dignity, but assigned to 
Him merely the first rank in the higher order of spirits" — 
Heinrich A. W. Meyer. 

The effect of gnosticism was to put God at an infinite 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 309 

distance from men; to fill that distance with orders of an- 
gelic beings; and to give Christ only the highest place 
among these. 

Matter was conceived of as evil, and the material crea- 
tion as the work of a lower spiritual being whom they 
called the Demiurge. 

Gnosticism has passed away as a philosophy, but the ef- 
forts to degrade Christ from His full and proper deity; to 
make a merit of ascetic practices ("touch not, taste not") ; 
and to conceive of the body and the natural physical de- 
sires as inherently evil and degrading — these, under ever 
new forms, survive and are abroad to-day. Against them 
Colossians is a perpetual and unanswerable declaration of 
the Spirit of God. 

Between a false legality and a false philosophy of Christ, 
His person, His work, and His universe, the true Christian 
faith ever moves. 

Chapter I. 

This chapter falls naturally into three parts: I. Intro- 
ductory, vs. 1-8. n. The Apostolic prayer, vs. 9-14. HI. 
The supremacy and work of Christ, vs. 15-29. 

The Apostle begins with the usual affirmation of the di- 
vine origin of his apostleship. He is an apostle of Jesus 
Christ by the will of God (cf. Gal. i:i, 11, 12). This is an 
affirmation of immense importance. If Paul is a theologian 
framing a system of doctrines which he believes to embody 
Christian truth, that is one thing; if he is God's sent-one 
communicating words from God, that is another thing. He 
affirms everywhere and always that he is the latter. 

And the first thing the Spirit bids him write to the Saints 
at Colosse is a message from God the Father and the Lord 
Jesus Christ. That message is, "Grace be unto you, and 



310 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

peace"; a message, not a pious wish. Remember that. It 
is always grace, and it is always peace. The Father may 
have a controversy with us about some of our ways, but the 
peace made by the blood of His cross ever abides, and every 
motion of the divine heart toward us is grace. 

The Apostle is thankful to God for three things concern- 
ing the Colossians, their faith, love, and hope. This is the 
true order. The object of faith is Christ Jesus, of love, the 
saints — all Saints, and not merely the lovable Saints. That 
is the real test of faith, ''love towards all the saints." 
'Xovest thou me? Feed my sheep." Faith begins with a 
backward look to Calvary; love looks around upon the 
brethren ; hope looks forward to the coming of the Lord. 

This kind of fruit is what Paul expects. The gospel is 
a vitalizing principle, not merely a "plan of salvation." 
Where the grace of God is known in truth fruit follows, 
the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit. And love, love toward all 
saints, comes first, and is first. 

The Colossians learned that from Epaphras, now Paul's 
fellow prisoner. He is called a faithful minister of Christ. 
The word for "minister" is diaconos — servant, "deacon." 
In our fear of what is called "one man ministry" let us not 
pervert the Scriptures. There were men in the Apostolic 
churches who did not go about. The churches of Jesus 
Christ need shepherding as well as teaching. No one can 
do that who does not know the sheep, and who is not known 
to the sheep. Epaphras, says Paul, "is one of you." Men 
running about with doctrines, however good, zealous and 
well-taught, can never be that to the local assemblies. 

And this brings us to the great Apostolic prayer. There 
is in it a beautiful seven-fold moral order. 

(i) All begins with the will of God. The primary ref- 
erence is to that will as it concerns the believer of this dis- 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 3n 

pensation. "According to the good pleasure of His will" 
He has predestinated us to the adoption of sons. Sonship 
is more than childship. The Old Testament saints were 
children, but were kept under the law as a pedagogue, and 
differed nothing from servants. But Christ has changed all 
that by redemption. Now we are no more servants, but 
sons. 

(2) And this gives character to the walk. The knowl- 
edge of His will in our position as sons is essential to a 
walk **unto all pleasing." The returning prodigal had so 
lost the sense of what was suited to the father's heart and 
mind as to think only of a hired servant's place. Too many 
make this mistake, supposing it to be true humility, when 
it is only grieving the Father's heart, and thwarting the 
Father's will. 

(3) And now we come to what so many put first — work. 
But it makes all the difference whether we work as sons 
or as servants. It makes all the difference whether we 
work in the place where His will has put us, or in a place 
and way of self -choosing. Before the Lord speaks of fruit- 
bearing He puts the disciples in their right place. "Hence- 
forth I call you not servants . . . but I have chosen you, 
and ordained you, that ye shall go and bring forth fruit." 

In the body of Christ every member has a place and func- 
tion sovereignly fixed "as it hath pleased Him." In that 
place and fulfilling that function, fruit is sure. 

(4) "And increasing in the knowledge of God." This 
goes beyond the knowledge of His will to an ever deeper 
knowledge of Him who wills. This order may not be 
varied; to know His will; to walk in a way suited to the 
place which that will has given us; to be diligent in our 
appointed work — ^these are the indispensable steps to per- 
sonal and first hand acquaintanceship with God. 



312 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

(5) The fifth element is strength in view of the inescap- 
able experiences, which await the believers. And how ade- 
quate the provision, "all might, according to His glorious 
power." 

(6) And this again is not an end but, like the knowledge 
of His will, a means to an end. The end is two-fold ; the 
attainment of patience, and of a joy so fundamental that 
suffering, though long continued, cannot quench it. 

(7) But the crown of all Christian experience is "giving 
thanks." The Apostle sets forth the reasons for thank- 
fulness. They are found in the permanent results of the 
work of Christ. Note the past tense. ''Hath made us 
meet" ; ''Hath delivered us" ; "Hath translated us" ; "We 
have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins." Under- 
neath all the shifting experiences of the believer's life, and 
the ebb and flow of his feelings, these eternal results of re- 
demption abide. They are safe in the changeless past. 

"My soul looks back to see 

The burden thou did'st bear, 
While hanging on the cursed tree. 
And knows her guilt was THERE." 

No believer may know abiding peace until he sees that 
before the world was he chosen in Christ, and that cen- 
turies before He was born God Himself took up the question 
of His guilt and forever disposed of it in the cross of Christ. 
It can never be brought in issue again. God will not do it, 
and "if God be for us who can be against us ?" "Who shall 
lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Our shameful 
sin is res adjiidicata — a matter already and forever adjudi- 
cated. 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 313 

Chapter II. 

The Apostle conies now to the core of the Epistle, the 
dangers to the simple and pure faith of the Gospel, which 
had aroused his solicitude in behalf of the saints at Colosse. 
If these had been local and transitory they might well be 
passed over with slight mention. 

But so it was in the divine providence that the perils to 
the faith at Colosse were the ever present perils in the 
midst of which the saints of all the centuries have lived. 
Paul prefaces the statement of them with an exhortation 
(Col. ii: 1-7). In two things the Apostle would have the 
saints knit together, in love and in an understanding and 
acknowledgment of the "mystery." 

A "mystery" in Scripture is some truth which has been 
kept back but is now revealed. There are seven such mys- 
teries in the New Testament, and, save the first, the 
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, each is mentioned re- 
peatedly. Here it is the mystery of God, that is Christ.* 
A false mysticism was abroad at Colosse; the Spirit of 
God will meet this with the true mysticism. This is ever 
the Bible way. Error is not simply denied; it is also con- 
fronted with the truth. Already one great mystery had been 
mentioned, that of the indwelling Christ. The practical side 
of this is brought out in Galatians where the inliving Christ 
is shown to be the governing fact of this present life of the 
believer. The whole problem, indeed, of the new life in 
Christ is to outlive Him who inlives. But here the source 
of all the Christian mysteries is revealed — the mystery of 
God Himself. The apostle applies this, first of all to the be- 
liever's walk. Mysteries belong to the sphere of faith, not 



*In Him, the Christ of God, are hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge (gnosis) Verse 3. 



314 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

sight. We received Jesus Christ by faith on the alone 
authority of the Word of God. Very well: as we began 
so we must go on. The Christian is not a person who, hav- 
ing made one venture into the sphere of faith when he re- 
ceived the Lord Jesus, may now live by sight and sound. 
He is a citizen of an unseen heaven ; served by the unseen 
messengers of an unseen Father ; preserved unto an unseen 
inheritance; loves and serves an unseen Christ. To these 
great verities of revelation faith gives substance: to faith 
they are more real than the granite hills. 

The three perils are, philosophy, the tradition (or cus- 
tom) of men, and legality, a return to the law. 

Against philosophy the warning is absolute. When science 
is in question the warning is qualified, for there is a true 
science. But there is no true philosophy. Philosophy is an 
attempt to investigate and explain the phenomena of a moral 
universe inhabited by morally accountable human beings, 
and to deduce principles for the wise and right government 
of life. But the Holy Scriptures are a divine and infallible 
revelation from God on that very subject. No men have 
ever thought so profoundly about the problems of life as 
the Greek philosophers, but their conclusions were summed 
up by inspiration as but "the wisdom of this world" which 
is mere ''foolishness" with God. But the terrible effect of 
this "wisdom of men," this "philosophy," is that it so per- 
verts the mind of man that the true wisdom, the "wisdom of 
God" seems to him mere "foolishness." That human 
philosophy is really foolishness is completely attested by the 
fact that after thousands of years it has reached no stable 
conclusion, the "philosophia ultima" is still an unrealized 
dream. One of the greatest of modern philosophers has said 
that over all philosophic speculation must be written the 
words, "Ever not quite." 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 315 

In no sphere, however, has philosophy wrought such havoc 
as in the sphere of revealed religion. Philosophies of the 
plan of salvation; philosophies of the atonement; philoso- 
phies of prayer — these have abounded, and it is they which 
have divided Christians into warring camps. "Beware lest 
any man make a spoil of you through philosophy, and vain 
deceit." 

The particular form of the philosophic peril at Colosse, 
Gnosticism, has passed away. Men no longer conceive of 
evil as lodged in matter, or seek to exonerate God from 
the crime of having created matter by inventing a creative 
creature, the "Urge" or "Demi-urge." But "religious" man 
is still wise above what is written, "intruding into those 
things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly 
mind," as so-called Christian Science,* Theosophy, and a 
host of modem cults testify. 

The third peril lay in what the Apostle calls "the rudi- 
ments [or "elements"] of the world" — a phrase which the 
Holy Spirit uses here and elsewhere for the law, especially 
the "law contained in ordinances." The Spirit in the New 
Testament never, it should be needless to say, makes light 
of the law. On the contrary it is the New Testament which 
especially honors the law. Not the law but the human per- 
version of the law by wresting it from the divine purpose — 
the using of the law "unlawfully," this is what the Spirit 
would guard against. "The law is not made for a righteous 
man" may be written over Romans vi : 8, and over the whole 
Epistle to the Galatians. The Holy Spirit does not, let it 
be repeated, object to the law itself, but to the law as mis- 
applied. It is, in the divine government and education of 
man, an "elementary," or "rudimentary" discipline. It be- 



*Partially a revival of ancient Gnosticism. 



3i6 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

longs to the age intermediate between Promise and Grace. 
It is a pedagogue for children who, during their minority, 
differ nothing from servants though heirs of all. 

In beautiful harmony with this the Apostle constantly 
uses the law as an "instruction in righteousness" for his 
Gentile babes in Christ who, converted out of heathenism, 
are ignorant of these very ''elements," or "rudiments" of 
righteousness. 

The second peril is "the tradition of men." The Apostle 
has in mind here that which men have superadded to revela- 
tion. In Judaism it was that which men had added to the 
law. Upon the clear revelations of Exodus and Leviticus 
the rabbins had built a structure of intolerable oppressive- 
ness. The Sabbath is an instance. As instituted by God it 
was simply and only a rest day for man and beast. Under 
the traditions of men it became a hard, ascetic synagogue — 
keeping religious observance, under which tender con- 
sciences were tortured. To the Gospel the same evil work 
of man has added asceticism in all its myriad forms, all of 
which have one root — the notion that the stern repression of 
all natural joy is essential to the pleasing of the God who 
implanted in man's nature the capacities for those very joys. 
In its grosser forms Protestant Christianity has cast off the 
"tradition" which made it holier to be a nun than a mother ; 
to be a monk than a father ; to wear sackcloth than silk ; to 
fast than eat. But the whole spirit of man-made "ordi- 
nances" abides, and so absolutely dominates the thinking 
and judgments of thousands of earnest souls that the apos- 
tolic injunction : Let, therefore, the judgment of no man 
govern you "in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy 
day . . or of the Sabbath," makes a demand upon Chris- 
tian manliness beyond the courage of most. 

Jesus Christ was no ascetic. He was as far from Es- 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 317 

seneism as from Pharisaism, or Herodianism, and the 
stricter rehgious opinion of His day condemned Him as 
a Sabbath-breaker, a glutton and wine-bibber. 

Against these three abiding perils: the peril from philo- 
sophic intrusion into the sphere of revelation; of ascetic 
and pietistic attempts to be holy by works of which Scripture 
says nothing, and of putting the objects of God's free grace 
back under the elementary system of law, the Apostle rears 
great divinely revealed principles. 

1. The believer is already complete in Christ. It is 
obvious that neither philosophy, pietism, nor legality can 
add to completeness. Christ "fulfilled all righteousness." 
Surely in behalf of the new creation, and then went to a 
sacrificial death in which the believer also died, and rose 
from the grave into a life which the believer shares. Is it 
a question of legal ordinances? They are nailed to the 
cross. It is a question of malefic "angels, principalities and 
powers?" Christ triumphed over them openly in the be- 
liever's behalf. 

2. The second great principle is that the believer's new 
life is not truly nourished by legal observances or ascetic 
practices. Just as the branches draw all life and growth 
from the true Vine, so the living members in the living 
body of Christ grow by renewals of life from the Head. It 
is a total misconception of Christianity to conceive of the 
believer as a religionist with a series of forms and observ- 
ances. He is a worshipper, but his place of worship is 
known only to faith, and accessible only through the Spirit. 
God never had pleasure in religious forms, even the forms 
which He commanded; they were mere shadows cast by a 
coming One. Now He is come, and the body of which the 
believer is a member is His body. How childish and trivial 
to suppose that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 



3i8 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

can be pleased, or the believer benefited, by "will worship," 
ascetic practices, philosophical mysticisms ! 

3. The Apostle exposes the real origin of these: they 
have, to the fleshly mind "a shew of wisdom," but they but 
serve to exalt the flesh. Their deluded votaries, Romanist, 
Protestant — what not, fancy themselves holier than their 
brethren who seek only to yield all to the sway of the inliving 
One that He may live out in them the life of simplicity, 
naturalness, and helpfulness which He illustrated when on 
earth. 



Chapter III. 

We reach now the preceptive part of the Epistle, the 
principles which are to govern the walk of a man in whom 
dwells Christ, who is complete in Him, and who needs 
neither ordinance, nor holy days, nor ascetic practices for 
his sanctification. 

At this point many would send us back to the law. We 
are told on every hand that, while the law is not a means of 
life it still remains the rule, or as some say the standard of 
life. But the apostle has already told us that the law is a 
rudimentary discipline, and that as to ordinances, Christ 
nailed them to His cross. It should be a very serious mat- 
ter to tear from the cross of Jesus Christ anything which He 
nailed to it. To man in and of the earth, having earthly 
promises, the law was a perfect testing. Moreover, "the 
law is spiritual," and searches the depths, showing man not 
only that he has sinned, but that he is sin ; that not only does 
he need forgiveness, but deliverance also from a law in his 
members mightier than the law of his mind. For such a 
state nothing but death and resurrection can avail. This, 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 319 

for every believer, is the reckoning of God, who sees him in 
Christ dying, in Christ living again in newness of life. 

Upon that ground, therefore, the preceptive portion of 
this, as of all other church epistles take the believer. "If 
ye then be risen with Christ." That is a word which it be- 
hooves us to learn. We may make it a touchstone by which 
to try every thought, every act, every motive, every plan. Is 
it suited to a man who was united to the Lord Jesus Christ 
in His death and resurrection, and in whom Christ lives, 
the hope of glory ? 

And so the Spirit develops the principle. "If therefore 
ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things above 
where the Christ is sitting at the right hand of God; have 
your mind on things above, not on the things on the earth." 
(Darby's Trans.) 

That strikes the key-note of the new life in Christ Jesus. 
All of the life is to be harmonized to that. Nothing is to be 
allowed which would make a discord in that heavenly music. 
The ear of faith catches the melody of the bells upon the 
robe of our High Priest who has passed into the holiest, 
there to present the blood of our atonement, and to appear 
in the presence of God for us, and the whole life is to be the 
echo on earth of those bells in heaven. 

So the Ephesians has it, only the illustration is drawn 
from the sister art, poesy. "For we are his poem [Gk. 
poiema] having been created in Christ Jesus for good 
works." And Peter tells us that we are to "chorus to- 
gether" the graces of virtue, knowledge, temperance, broth- 
erly love and full love. 

Humiliating failure, unspirituality, unfruitfulness result 
inevitably from our failure to conceive of the life which 
we now live in the flesh as the very life of the risen Christ, 
which in us co-crucified and co-risen, seeks to reproduce in 



320 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

and through us the graces which are in Him. So long as 
we conceive of ourselves as men, merely, earthlings and of 
the earth, we will "walk as men." When we really take 
account of ourselves as "dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto 
God in Christ Jesus," and therefore as truly "strangers and 
pilgrims on the earth," we will with purpose of heart "seek 
those things which are above, where Christ is seated at the 
right hand of God." 

The Spirit dwells upon this great principle, that the 
position into which grace has brought us is to govern the 
walk on earth. "For ye have died, and your life is hid 
with the Christ in God." "Hid," as the life of the stream 
that makes music and brings freshness and joy in the valley 
is hid in the spring away yonder on the mountain. Our 
life is there as to its origin and its renewal. We live His 
life as the members of our bodies live our life; as the 
branch lives the life of the Vine. It is an unsevered life, 
one life in Him and in us. 

We think of life in two ways : as a fact, and as a series 
of thoughts and actions. The law took man in Adam and 
gave him a perfect rule; grace takes man dead in tres- 
passes and sins, and imparting to him the divine nature, 
and the very life of the risen Son of God, puts glory before 
him as his absolutely sure destiny, and exhorts that he mani- 
fest this new Hfe in new thoughts and deeds. It is the new 
principle of grace : "Make the tree good, and his fruit good." 

The Spirit now applies the great principle of death and 
resurrection to the practical details of life. 

I. The man who walks in newness of life will "mortify" 
in the members which are upon the earth, i. e., the mortal 
body, the things which, in an unbeliever, bring judgment. 
Some of those "things" are enumerated. They are of "the 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 321 

works of the flesh" described in Galatians, and are the very 
opposites of the "fruit of the Spirit." 

"Mortify" is an unflinching word. It means, "make 
dead." We must go to Romans for the means by which 
we are to "make dead" the evils most deeply rooted in fallen 
human nature — perversions of the sex principle, and cove- 
tousness. Is is "through the Spirit," and only so, that the 
believer puts these things in the place of death. Self -effort 
is utterly vain. The Seventh of Romans is the record of a 
converted man, and that man no less a personage than the 
Apostle Paul, seeking self -victory over self, only to be ut- 
terly defeated. But the same man, instructed as to his privi- 
lege in the Spirit, finds a victory over self so quiet and 
complete that he can state it in three lines : "the law of the 
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
law of sin and death." 

But making dead the deeds of the body, that is a walk in 
victory over known and specific sin, is a vastly different 
thing from "the entire eradication of the flesh," of which 
some speak. It is a phrase never found in Scripture. Two 
facts are ever present to the believer — the fact of "sin that 
dwelleth in me," and the fact that the body is the temple 
of the Holy Ghost "which is in you, which ye have of God." 
And "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
against the flesh : and these are contrary the one to the 
other" — to what end? "That ye may not do the [evil] 
things that [left to yourself] ye would." 

But the shameful categories of "fornication, uncleanness, 
evil desire, and covetousness" are not the only things to be 
"put away" in the Spirit's power. Let us give heed to this. 
Vast numbers of Christians who walk in victory over sex 
sins make little of "anger, wrath, malice," etc. Evil temper 
in the home, the outlash of anger, or, if this be restrained, 



322 THINGS NEW AND OLD 

the indulgence in a cold cutting sarcasm toward children or 
servants — these may go with the most perfect courtesy 
toward strangers, or acquaintances. Alas ! they may go, 
too, with very high doctrine, and great scrupulosity in mat- 
ters of Biblical teaching. 

There is to be, therefore, a thorough "putting off," and 
"putting on." Christ for us is justification ; Christ in us is 
sanctification ; Christ upon us is manifestation. The result 
will be the blessed life. "And let the peace of God rule in 
your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; 
and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you 
richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one an- 
other ; in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with 
grace in your hearts to the Lord." 

Lovely picture ! And now, having as one may say drawn 
the landscape of the blessed life, the Spirit fills it with fig- 
ures : "wives," "husbands," "children," "fathers," "serv- 
ants," "masters," "them without." Ah ! the blessed life is 
not, then, a vision, a fabled Atalantis, an imaginary Re- 
public, a cloudy ideal, or, at most, an inward state. No. 
The blessed life is first of all a life right with God, and then 
a life of blessed peace and song within, and all this unto a 
life of practical righteousness, kindliness, helpfulness and 
power. 

The apostle finds time to call Tychicus "a beloved brother, 
and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord." 
One supposes that Tychicus was at many points imperfect ; 
that Paul might have backbitten Tychicus as easily as 
praised him. It is always so. Two classes of facts are pat- 
ent in the life of every servant of God: his shortcomings, 
imperfections, and failures, equally with his zeal, his prayer- 
fulness, his real loyalty to Jesus Christ. We may dwell 
upon either: Paul seems to have rejoiced in the good which 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 323 

he saw in his brethren. One does not think that any one 
ever left a private interview with Paul with a bad taste in 
his mouth about Tychicus and Timothy — no, nor even Bar- 
nabas and John Mark ! 

The Epistle closes with, perhaps, the loveliest pictures of 
all — Epaphras on his knees in prison. We must not miss 
that. Epaphras had labored in the Word at Colosse. He 
was, probably, a "pastor and teacher" there; and there is, 
incidentally, a word to such : "Epaphras, who is one of you/' 
He was not "lording it over God's heritage," but a brother- 
man amongst those Colossian believers. But now he is a 
prisoner at Rome, and can no longer teach and exhort at 
Colosse. Modern speech would describe him as, "providen- 
tially laid aside." Evidently he did not think so of himself, 
and so we have a beautiful illustration of the difference 
between the believer's office as a priest, an office which all 
believers of this age have alike, and his gift as a servant. 
Epaphras could no longer minister his gift, but Nero's walls 
could not shut him out from access to God in the holiest, 
and so, laying down for the time his gift, he remembers 
that he is a priest, and Paul could say of him: "Always 
laboring fervently for you in prayers." And who can doubt 
that Epaphras' prayers for his Colossian flock were, after 
all, his mightiest ministry ? 



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